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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
































I 






At dawn the buccaneers sailed away 















THE BOYS’ BOOK 
OF BUCCANEERS 


BY 

A. HYATT VERRILL 

i) 


i 


AUTHOR OF 

**AN AMERICAN CRUSOE,” “ THE BOVS’ OUTDOOR VACATION BOOK 
“the boys’ BOOK OF WHALERS,” ETC. 


/ 


ILLUSTRATED 


/ 




99 


NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1923 



COPYBIGHT, 1923, 

BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. 



PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY 

®f)t (Quinn & IBofctn Companp 

BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
RAHWAY NEW JERSEY 


MIC 30 ’23 

©C1A711G96 






CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Chapter I Who and Wpiat Were the Bucca¬ 
neers ? .1 

Pirates and buccaneers. How the buccaneers origi¬ 
nated, The first buccaneers. Settlement of Tortuga. 

How the buccaneers received their name. How the 
first prizes were taken. Originators of accident in¬ 
surance. Pieces of eight and the origin of the dollar. 
Organization of the buccaneers. 

Chapter II Some Buccaneers and Their Ways 14 

Pierre le Grand, the first famous buccaneer. How Le 
Grand took the admiral’s ship. Esquernaling and his 
chronicles. Bartholomew Portugues and his deeds. 

A remarkable escape. Pock Brasiliano. A brutal 
buccaneer. Brasiliano’s ruse. Francis L’Ollonois the 
cruel. The most bloodthirsty buccaneer. Cruelties of 
L’Ollonois. How L’Ollonois took Maracaibo. The 
death of L’Ollonois. 


Chapter III Morgan and His Road to Fame . 

Bravery of Spaniards. Attitude of the buccaneers. 
Early life of Morgan. The truth about Morgan. 
Queer character of Morgan. Treatment of prisoners. 
Buccaneers and Indians. Port Royal, the lair of the 
buccaneers. Attack on Old Providence. Morgan’s first 
raids. Morgan’s attack on Puerto Principe. The buc¬ 
caneers in Cuba. Morgan prepares to attack Porto 
Bello. The Gold Road. Capture of Porto Bello. Mor¬ 
gan’s brutality. An exchange of pleasantries. 


39 


Chapter IV The Sacking of Maracaibo . 

Morgan gathers a great fleet. Morgan’s treachery. 
Morgan’s narrow escape from destruction. Tortures 
and butcheries. Morgan is blockaded. The bucca¬ 
neers defeat the Spanish fleet. Morgan’s ruse. The 
buccaneers escape from Maracaibo. 

[Hi] 


64 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Chapter V The Taking of San Lorenzo . . 81 

Morgan’s greatest undertaking. Tlie buccaneers’ great¬ 
est fleet. The capture of St. Catherine. The gover¬ 
nor’s treachery. The buccaneers sail for the Chagres. 

Attack on San Lorenzo. The battle. How accident 
won the day. Valiant Spaniards. Capture of the 
castle. The buccaneers start for Panama. Hardships 
of the journey. In sight of Panama. 

Chapter VI The Sack of Panama . . . 100 

The Jolly Roger. Buccaneers’ standards. How the 
buccaneers dressed. The battle before Old Panama. 

The buccaneers take the city. Morgan’s fury. Burn¬ 
ing of Panama. Looting and torturing. Morgan’s 
vengeance. Morgan demands ransoms. Morgan’s gal¬ 
lantry. The return to the coast. Division of booty. 
Morgan deserts his men. 

Chapter VII The Misfortunes of Monsieur 

Ogeron. 119 

The golden altar of San Jos§. Arrest of Morgan. 
Morgan knighted. The ex-buccaneer suppresses piracy. 

The end of Sir Henry Morgan. Ogeron sails for 
Curagao. The buccaneers come to grief. How Ogeron 
escaped. Ogeron returns to Puerto Rico. Defeat of 
the buccaneers. Le Sieur Maintenon and his misfor¬ 
tunes. Odd characters among the buccaneers. The 
buccaneer poet. A buccaneer naturalist. The divinity 
student who was a buccaneer. Ringrose the navigator. 

Chapter VIII A Perilous Undertaking . . 133 

A mad scheme. The plan of Sharp and his fellows. 

The buccaneers start across Darien. A terrible jour¬ 
ney. Aid from the Indians. The buccaneers sight 
El Real de Santa Maria. Attack on the town. The 
buccaneers’ chagrin. The buccaneers go on towards 
Panama. Humanity wins its reward. In sight of the 
town. The Spanish fleet. A daring attempt. How the 
buccaneers took the Spanish fleet. Capture of the 
Santissima Trinidad. Valuable prizes. Dissensions and 
desertions. Trading with the Dons. Messages from 
the governor. Sawkins remembers an old friend. 

Loss of Captain Sawkins. 

[iv] 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Chapter IX The “Most Dangerous Voyage’’ 

op Captain Sharp.150 

More desertions. Captain Sharp tells his plans. An 
amazing program. An awful trip. What happened to 
Wafer. The transformed galleon starts on its cruise. 

Kaids on the coast. At Juan Fernandez. The men 
want religion. Sharp is deposed. Watling and his 
ways. Sharp’s prophecy. The prophecy fulfilled. Wat- 
ling’s death. Sharp takes command. The buccaneers 
repulsed. Mutinies and deserters. Sharp refits the 
. Blessed Trinity. The buccaneers set forth on their 
most dangerous voyage. The buccaneers miss the 
Straits of Magellan. Around the Horn through un- 
chartered seas. Up the Atlantic. At the journey’s 
end. The treasure the buccaneers threw away. 

Chapter X The Last of the Buccaneers . 174 

The buccaneers in the South Sea. The cruise of the 
Revenge. The Bachelors’ Delight. Davis and his raids. 

The cruise of the Cygnet. Reunion of old friends. 

The buccaneers are disappointed. Swan’s defeat. Ring- 
rose’s death. Across the Pacific. The buccaneers in 
Madagascar. Townley takes vast treasure. The end 
of Townley. The sack of Guayaquil. Back to the 
Antilles. Buccaneers in the East Indies. Red Legs. 

A moral pirate. Red Legs’ chivalry. The penalty of 
a scolding wife. Major Stede Bonnet. An unfortu¬ 
nate pirate. End of Bonnet. The pirates in the 
Virgin Islands. Hamlin at St. Thomas. 

Chapter XI Kidd, the Pirate Who Wasn’t a 

Pirate.192 

Pirate treasure in fact and fancy. The truth about 
pirate treasure. Kidd’s unfounded fame. The true 
story of Captain Kidd. Trial of Captain Kidd. Death 
of Captain Kidd. A Don Quixote of the sea. Prince 
Rupert of the Rhine. A romantic figure. Shipwreck 
of Prince Rupert’s fleet. The death of Prince Rupert. 

Chapter XII Picturesque Pirates . . . 208 

The “Man with the glove in his hat.” My Lord, the 
Earl of Cumberland. The cruise of The Scourge of 
Malice. The Earl’s attack on Puerto Rico. The Eng- 

[V] 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


lish take San Juan. The unseen foe. A losing battle. 
The Earl retreats. The most famous real pirate. 
Blackbeard. A monster in human form. Blackbeard’s 
courage. Blackbeard’s ways. Blackbeard’s castle. 
Origin of Blackbeard. How Blackbeard became a 
pirate. Blackbeard’s appearance. How lilackbeard 
amused his men. A pirate’s joke. A much-married 
pirate. 


Chapter XIII The End of Blackbeard 

Lieutenant Maynard’s attempt. The attack on the 
pirates. Maynard repulsed. A hand to hand battle. 
The fight. Maynard and Blackbeard fight a duel. A 
gruesome sight. Blackbeard’s death. The end of the 
pirates. The Lafitte brothers. Who the Lafittes w r ere. 
The Baratarians. Smugglers. The governor’s procla¬ 
mation. Denounced as pirates. Lafitte’s trial. The 
arrival of the British. Lafitte’s patriotism. The gov¬ 
ernor’s attack. The Baratarians destroyed. Lafitte 
proffers his services to General Jackson. Bravery of 
Lafitte and his men. Pardons. What became of the 
Lafittes. The end of piracy. What we owe the buc¬ 
caneers. 


225 . 


[Vi] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

At dawn the buccaneers sailed away . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Money of the buccaneers’ times .... 16 

Cruising about in small boats and attacking every 

Spanish ship they saw.17 

He managed to secure two earthen wine jars and 
plugged their necks, with the idea of using 
them as floats.34 

The buccaneers swarmed over the ship’s rails . 35 

Sir Henry Morgan, the most famous of the bucca¬ 
neers, with one of his crew . . . . 76 

Burning the galleon.77 

The buccaneers’ fleet.116 

The ruined tower of the cathedral in Old Panama 117 

Near the cathedral are the walls of the ancient fort 117 

Dampier wrote his journal during lulls between 

battles 140 

Piraguas. It was in boats like these that the ear¬ 
lier buccaneers captured their first Spanish 
ships.141 

Two ships were promptly fired and sunk . . 163 

The battered, patched old galleon sailed southward 

around Cape Horn.169 

The merchants bid for the loot brought ashore . 188 

All were in the best of spirits, smoking, drinking, 

spinning yarns of the sea.189 

The last of the pirate ships, the Vigilant, as she 
was originally rigged. Now a packet in the 
West Indies.244 


Vll 












\ 












THE BOYS’ BOOK OF 
BUCCANEERS 


CHAPTER I 

WHO AND WHAT WERE THE BUCCANEERS! 

J ACK looked up from the book he had been 
reading. “Father,’’ he asked, “wliat was 
a buccaneer! Cousin Fred says buccaneers 
and pirates were the same thing, and Jim says 
they were not, and in this story they speak of 
pirates and buccaneers both.” 

“Fred and Jim are both wrong and both right,” 
replied Mr. Bickford. “Buccaneers were pirates, 
but pirates were not necessarily buccaneers. But 
nowadays the two are often confused and writers 
of stories do not seem to realize the difference 
and make it still more confusing. When Fred 
comes over to-night bring him into the library, 
and I’ll try to straighten out the puzzle and tell 
you about the buccaneers.” 

“Say, Fred!” cried Jack, when his cousin came 

[1] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


bouncing into Jack’s den that evening. “You 
were way off. Buccaneers were not the same as 
pirates. Dad says so, and he’s going to tell us 
all about them to-night. Come on down to the 
library. ’ ’ 

“That’ll be dandy,” agreed Fred, enthusiasti¬ 
cally. “And of course if Uncle Henry says they’re 
not the same, why they’re not, but I always 
thought they were. I wonder if Captain Kidd 
was a pirate or a buccaneer.” 

“Ask Dad, he knows!” laughed Jack, as the two 
raced downstairs to Mr. Bickford’s library. 

They found him surrounded by books with odd, 
old-fashioned, worn leather bindings and with 
some faded and yellowed maps and cuts on the 
table before him. 

“Well, boys,” he greeted them, “I suppose you 
want to know all about the buccaneers who sailed 
the Spanish Main, eh?” 

“Yes, and Fred wants to know if Captain Kidd 
was a pirate or a buccaneer,” replied Jack. 

‘ ‘ Neither! ’ ’ laughed his father. ‘ 1 Captain Kidd 
was, as you boys would say, ‘the goat’ of a lot of 
unprincipled men. But we’re getting ahead too 
fast. We’ll discuss the famous Kidd when we 
come to him.” 


[2] 


WHO AND WHAT WERE BUCCANEERS? 

‘‘ Well, that gets me!” declared Fred, as the 
boys found comfortable seats in the big leather 
chairs. “Captain Kidd not a pirate!” 

“Pirates,’’ began Mr. Bickford, leaning back 
in his chair, ‘ 1 have been known ever since men 
first used boats. The earliest histories mention 
them. There were Phoenician pirates, Greek pi¬ 
rates, Roman pirates, and the old Vikings were 
nothing more or less than pirates. Then there 
were the Malay pirates, the Tripolitan pirates 
and the Chinese pirates who still exist, and we 
still have harbor pirates, oyster pirates and river 
pirates. A pirate is any one who preys upon 
shipping or steals merchandise in a boat, and he 
may be and usually is a sneaking, cowardly rascal 
without a redeeming feature. Moreover, a pirate 
preys on any one and every one, and while some 
pirates, such as the Vikings, confined their forays 
to certain nations and their ships and did not 
molest others, yet most pirates loot, murder and 
destroy with impartiality and fall upon their own 
countrymen or others alike. But the buccaneers 
were very different. In the first place, buccaneers 
were not known until comparatively recent times 
and the first buccaneers had their origin in 1625. 

“At that time England was at war with Spain, 

[3] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

and the Spanish Government claimed all the New 
World and decreed that any ships found trading 
in the Caribbean or neighboring waters, or any 
settlers found upon the islands or the Spanish 
Main, were pirates and would be treated as such.” 

“But, Dad, what is the Spanish Main?” asked 
Jack, interrupting. 

“I don’t wonder you ask,” replied his father. 
“To read of it one would think it a body of water, 
for we hear of ‘sailing the Spanish Main.’ But 
in reality it was the mainland of South and Cen¬ 
tral America and when the buccaneers spoke of 
‘sailing the Spanish Main’ they meant skirting 
the coast. But to continue. Of course the British 
and French claimed many of the West Indies 
and, despite the dangers, settlers went to them. 
Among the others that were settled was the island 
of St. Kitts, which was settled by both French 
and English. Although the settlers quarreled 
among themselves, still they managed to exist and 
were becoming fairly prosperous when in 1625 
the Spanish vessels swept down upon them, 
burned their plantations and, after killing many 
of the settlers, drove them into the woods. With¬ 
out homes or means the survivors sought to re¬ 
establish themselves, but a few set sail in little 

[4] 


WHO AND WHAT WERE BUCCANEERS? 


dugout canoes seeking new lands. In these little 
craft they reached Santo Domingo, which was 
then known as Hispaniola, and was a stronghold 
of the Spaniards. But it was such a marvelously 
rich and promising country that the fugitive 
Frenchmen landed and sent back for their com¬ 
panions. At first the Dons knew nothing of these 
new arrivals, but as they increased, word of their 
presence reached the authorities, and soldiers 
were sent to drive them off or destroy them. 

“At that time Hispaniola was teeming with 
wild cattle, wild hogs, wild horses and wild dogs, 
descendents of the animals introduced by the 
Spaniards, and the Frenchmen occupied most of 
their time hunting and killing these creatures. 
Their hides were valuable, and their meat was pre¬ 
served by drying it over fires or transforming it 
into a product known to the Spaniards as ‘bucan.’ 
Thus the Frenchmen became known as ‘bucan- 
iers,’ from which the name ‘buccaneer’ was de¬ 
rived. So you see the buccaneers were not pirates 
at all at that time, and the name has no connection 
with piracy. 

“Owing to their occupation, the buccaneers be¬ 
came expert shots, good woodsmen, hardy, reck¬ 
less and daring, and they hated the Dons like 

[ 5 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

poison. But they could not stand against the 
Spanish troops and so, taking to their canoes, 
they fled to the island of Tortuga, off the north¬ 
ern coast of what is now Haiti. Here there were 
a few Spanish settlers, but they were so out¬ 
numbered by the buccaneers that they made no 
objection to their new neighbors. The Dons, how¬ 
ever, had no intention of letting the buccaneers 
alone and sent expeditions to drive them off. 
Then the buccaneers started a merry game of 
puss in the corner. When the Dons arrived at 
Tortuga the buccaneers slipped over to the main¬ 
land, and when the Spaniards sought them there 
they sneaked back to the island. By this time they 
had been joined by many English, a few Portu¬ 
guese and a number of Dutch, and feeling their 
numbers were sufficient to make a stand, they pro¬ 
ceeded to fortify Tortuga. They selected a high 
rocky hill on the summit of which was a deep de¬ 
pression and with infinite labor converted this into 
a fort, mounted cannon and stored a supply of 
wood and ammunition. Then they destroyed the 
only approach—a narrow defile—and the fort 
could only be reached by means of ladders low¬ 
ered from the parapets. 

“For a long time the Dons left them alone, 

[ 6 ] 


WHO AND WHAT WERE BUCCANEERS? 


realizing the impossibility of taking the fort, and 
the little settlement prospered and grew. The 
French sent ont a governor and there at the very 
threshold of the Dons’ richest possession the 
handful of buccaneers lived and plied their trade. 
But although they were composed of half a dozen 
different races, one and all hated the Spaniards 
and soon, not content with buccaneering, they be¬ 
came ambitious and with reckless bravery set out 
in small canoes with the intention of capturing 
Spanish ships. It seems incredible that these 
rough, untrained hunters could seize a heavily 
armed ship swarming with sailors and soldiers, 
but nevertheless they did. Lying in wait in the 
track of ships they would pull to the first Spanish 
galleon that appeared and, while their expert 
marksmen would pick off the Spanish gunners 
and the helmsman, they would dash alongside, so 
close that the cannon could not bear upon them. 
Jamming the ship’s rudder with their boat, they 
would swarm up and over the bulwarks, pistols 
and swords in hand and knives in teeth and, yell¬ 
ing like demons, would rush the crew, cutting, 
slashing, shooting and stabbing. Seldom did they 
fail, and thus having secured ships and guns, to 
say nothing of treasure, they would sail back to 

[ 7 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

their lair, flushed with victory. Then, having good 
ships and plenty of heavy guns, they transformed 
their prizes into privateers and set sail in search 
of more Spanish ships to conquer. 

“You must remember that at this time England 
and France were at war with Spain, and hence the 
buccaneers were in no sense pirates. Many of 
them were given commissions to prey on the Dons 
as privateers, and their acts were considered a 
legitimate part of warfare and were encouraged 
and fostered by the officials. 

“And having gone thus far they realized that 
organization was necessary. Hence a sort of asso¬ 
ciation was formed, or perhaps we might call it 
a society, which they called ‘Brethren of the 
Main’ and laws, rules and agreements were drawn 
up, to which, oddly enough, the buccaneers were 
wonderfully faithful. 

“Another interesting thing is the fact that these 
buccaneers were the originators of life and acci¬ 
dent insurance. Before a ship set out a council 
was held, and papers were drawn up stating how 
large a share of the loot each man should have 
for his services, aside from his ‘lay’ of loot, and 
how much should be paid for the death of a man 
or injuries received. Thus the loss of a right arm 

[ 8 ] 


WHO AND WHAT WERE BUCCANEERS? 


was valued at six hundred pieces of eight or six 
slaves; a left arm was valued at five hundred 
pieces of eight or five slaves; a right leg, five hun¬ 
dred pieces of eight or five slaves; a left leg, four 
hundred pieces of eight or four slaves; an eye or 
a finger, one hundred pieces of eight or one 
slave.” 

“Please, Dad,” cried Jack. “Do tell us what a 
piece of eight is before you go on. We read about 
them and about doubloons and onzas, but no one 
seems to know what they are.” 

“That’s a question well put,” replied Mr. Bick¬ 
ford. “A piece of eight was a silver coin of eight 
reals. As a real was nominally twelve and one- 
half cents, or half a peseta of twenty-five centavos, 
the piece of eight was nominally a dollar of one 
hundred centavos. The doubloon was one hun¬ 
dred reals, or about ten dollars, and was a gold 
coin, while the onza, or double doubloon, was two 
hundred reals, or about twenty dollars, and was 
also of gold. But as the peseta is really worth 
only twenty cents in present values the piece of 
eight is worth eighty cents, and if you go to any 
money exchange you can buy Spanish silver 
‘dollars/ as they are called, for eighty cents, 
which are genuine ‘pieces of eight.’ For smaller 

[ 9 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


coins, the old Dons and buccaneers used what were 
called* cross money. ’ These were irregular-shaped 
slugs cut from the pieces of eight and with the 
lettering hammered out, leaving only the cross¬ 
shaped center of the Spanish shield to prove the 
coin was minted silver of a definite value. Some¬ 
times, if the piece did not bear this cross, the 
priests stamped a cross upon it to prove its gen¬ 
uineness—a sort of hall mark so to speak. These 
odd cross money coins are still in use in remote 
parts of Panama and, although no two are exactly 
alike in size or shape, the natives recognize them 
as quarters, eighths or sixteenths of a piece of 
eight, or in other words, as half reals, one-real 
and two-real pieces. And speaking of these old 
coins, did you ever know that the piece of eight 
was the grandfather of our own dollar, and was 
the forerunner of the metric system, and that our 
symbol for the dollar came from the sign used 
to designate the piece of eight?” 

“No, indeed,” declared Fred. “Do tell us 
about that.” 

“In the old days,” smiled Mr. Bickford, as he 
continued, “nearly all countries used the piece of 
eight as the standard of exchange and barter. It 

[ 10 ] 


WHO AND WHAT WEEE BUCCANEERS! 

was used in the American colonies, but after the 
United States were formed it was decided to mint 
a standard coin for the new republic. As the piece 
of eight was the recognized standard, the new coin 
was made of the same weight and value to avoid 
trouble and confusion in trade and commerce. 
All the accounts had been kept in pieces of eight, 
the symbol for which was a figure eight with a 
line through it like this, $, and which may have 
originally been a figure eight with a line through 
it or, as some claim, a conventional Pillar of 
Hercules such as appeared on the pieces of eight, 
and so the accountants and clerks found it easier 
to use the same symbol with the addition of an¬ 
other line to designate dollars than to evolve a 
new symbol. So you see our dollar sign is really 
a modification of the old sign for the piece of 
eight.’ ’ 

“Gosh! I’ll be more interested in dollar signs 
now,” declared Jack, “and every time I see one 
I’ll remember what a piece of eight was.” 

“As I was saying,” went on his father, “the 
agreements and papers were drawn up, a captain 
was chosen, the buccaneers made forays into the 
Spanish territory and stole what cattle and hogs 

[ii] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

and other supplies they required, and the ships set 
forth to capture Spanish prizes and raid the towns 
on the Spanish Main. 

“The crews were rough, reckless, daredevils of 
every race; soldiers of fortune who had drifted 
to Tortuga and joined the Brethren, and as they 
had everything to gain and nothing to lose they 
exhibited bravery, took risks and performed deeds 
which have never been equaled. But they were 
not real pirates by any means—except in the eyes 
of the Spaniards. They never molested French 
or British ships, they were openly welcomed and 
aided in the French or British islands, and even 
when peace was declared and the buccaneers still 
continued to prey upon the Dons, the authorities 
winked at them and gave them refuge. But in 
time dissensions arose between the English, the 
Dutch and the French buccaneers at Tortuga, and 
the various nationalities separated and each took 
separate spots for their strongholds. The Virgin 
Islands were favorite lairs, for the Danish and 
Dutch owners were safe from their attacks by 
sheltering the freebooters, who spent money as 
recklessly as they won it, and the buccaneers had 
stringent rules, and the death penalty was inflicted 
upon any man who molested the persons or prop- 

[ 12 ] 


WHO AND WHAT WERE BUCCANEERS? 

erties of the friendly islanders. The British buc¬ 
caneers made Port Royal, Jamaica, their strong¬ 
hold, and that town became famed as the richest 
and wickedest city in the world. Another lair was 
a little island in Samana Bay in Santo Domingo, 
and the Cayman Islands south of Cuba, the Bay 
Islands off Honduras and several islands off the 
Coast of Venezuela also became nests for the free¬ 
booters. 

“At first, of course, all the buccaneers were 
equal. There were none who knew more of buc¬ 
caneering than the others, all pooled their re¬ 
sources and the captains were elected by vote or 
won their place through owning a ship or having 
captured one. But gradually certain men won 
fame and prestige for their cruelty, their daring 
or their success, and rapidly rose to recognized 
leadership and became famous as buccaneer 
chiefs. 


[ 13 ] 


CHAPTER II 


SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 

y OW, having learned why the buccaneers 
I were so called and how they came into 

^ ^1 existence, we’ll take up a more inter¬ 
esting matter, and I’ll try to tell you something 
of the men themselves, of the most famous buc¬ 
caneers and of their deeds,” continued Mr. 
Bickford. 

“Certain famous buccaneers’ names are almost 
household words—such as Morgan, Montbars, 
L’Ollonois and your friend Captain Kidd, who, 
as I said, was no buccaneer—but others, who did 
even braver and more terrible things and were 
the most noted of buccaneers in their day, are 
almost unknown to the world to-day. Among 
these was Pierre Le Grand, Brasiliano, Bartholo¬ 
mew Portugues, Sawkins, Sharp, Davis, Red 
Legs, Cook, Dampier, Mansvelt, Prince Rupert 
and many others.” 

“But you’ve forgotten Drake and Hawkins and 
Blackbeard,” put in Jack. 

[ 14 ] 


SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 


c6 None of those men were buccaneers,” his 
father declared. ‘‘ Drake and Hawkins were 
privateers—Drake being Admiral of Queen Eliza¬ 
beth’s navy—and won their fame in the destruc¬ 
tion of the Spanish Armada. Later they attacked 
and took towns on the Spanish Main and de¬ 
stroyed Spanish ships, but they were neither pi¬ 
rates nor buccaneers. In fact, they were both 
dead before buccaneers became of any importance 
as sea rovers. On the other hand, Blackbeard was 
an ordinary pirate—a sea robber who made no 
attempt to discriminate between friend and foe 
and scuttled and robbed ships of his own country¬ 
men as readily as those of other nationalities. 
But as he was an interesting character and was 
among the last of the important or dangerous 
pirates of the Caribbean I will tell you something 
of his life and career later. 

4 ‘The first buccaneer to rise to any fame was 
Pierre Le Grand, or as he was oftener called, 
Peter the Great, a native of Dieppe in Normandy. 
Le Grand’s first and only achievement, and the 
one which brought him fame, was the taking of 
the Vice Admiral of the Spanish fleet near Cape 
Tiburon in Haiti. With a small boat manned by 
twenty-eight of the rough buccaneers Le Grand 

[ 15 ] 


THE BOYS' BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

set forth in search of prizes and cruised among 
the Bahamas, but for many days saw no ship. 
Provisions were running low, his men were 
grumbling and he had about decided to give up 
in despair when they sighted a huge Spanish ship 
which had become separated from the rest of the 
convoy. Setting sail they headed for the vessel 
and at twilight were very close. In order to force 
his men to their utmost, Le Grand ordered one 
of his crew to bore holes in the bottom of the 
boat and then, running their tiny craft alongside 
the Don, and armed only with swords and pistols, 
the buccaneers swarmed over the sides of the 
doomed ship. Taken absolutely by surprise, for 
the Spaniards had not dreamed that the handful 
of ragged men in a tiny sail boat intended to 
attack them, the crew of the ship, nevertheless, 
resisted stoutly. But they were ruthlessly cut 
down and while some of the buccaneers drove the 
Spaniards across the deck, others with Le Grand 
at their head, dashed into the cabin where the 
unsuspecting Vice Admiral was enjoying a quiet 
game of cards with his officers. 

4 ‘As Le Grand leaped across the room and 
placed his pistol at the Admiral's breast the dum- 

[ 16 ] 



Money of the buccaneers’ times 

1. Pieces of eight 3-4. Cross money 

2. Doubloon 5. Castillano 








Cruising about in small boats and 


ATTACKING EVERY SPANISH SHIP 


THEY SAW 





SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 

founded Spaniard exclaimed, ‘Lord bless us! Are 
these devils or what f ’ 

“But he soon realized that whatever they were 
his ship was in their hands and that he and his 
men were prisoners. Le Grand, however, was 
neither a brutal nor a bloodthirsty wretch, as were 
many of his successors, and, having impressed as 
many of the Spanish seamen into his service as 
he required, he set the others, including the Ad¬ 
miral and the officers, ashore, and set sail with 
his prize for France. So great was the booty he 
secured by this one coup that he gave up buc¬ 
caneering and settled down in France for life. 

“But his deed fired the buccaneers on Tortuga 
with dreams of easily acquired prizes and riches, 
and soon a host of the rough hunters and woods¬ 
men were cruising about in small boats and at¬ 
tacking every Spanish ship they saw. Indeed, 
many, unable to secure sailboats, actually went 
a-pirating in tiny dugout canoes, and so daring 
and reckless were they that, despite their handi¬ 
caps, they took two huge galleons laden with plate 
within the first month, as well as many smaller 
vessels. Now that they had seaworthy ships and 
plenty of wealth at their disposal they became 

[ 17 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

bolder and bolder, and were soon not only cruis¬ 
ing the Caribbean Sea, and taking ships, but were 
attacking the fortified and wealthy towns along 
the Central and South American coast with suc¬ 
cess. And let me mention here that it was very 
seldom that the buccaneers made use of the larger 
ships in their piratical raids. The smaller vessels 
were faster, they were more easily handled, and 
when necessity arose they could slip through 
narrow, shoal channels through which the Span¬ 
ish men-of-war could not follow. The buccaneers’ 
vessels seldom carried over six guns, many had 
but two or three, but they swarmed with men 
armed to the teeth, and the buccaneers depended 
far more upon a dashing attack and hand-to-hand 
fights than upon cannon fire.” 

“Excuse me, Bad,” interrupted Jack, “but are 
there books that tell all these things?” 

“Yes, Jack,” replied Mr. Bickford. “And the 
best and most complete is a book called ‘The Buc¬ 
caneers of America.’ It was written by a bucca¬ 
neer, a man named Esquemeling, who took part in 
nearly all the most famous of the buccaneers’ raids 
and served with Morgan, L’Ollonois and many 
other buccaneer chiefs. His own history is almost 
as interesting as that of any of the men of whom 

[ 18 ] 


SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 

he wrote. He was a Hollander by birth, but went 
to Tortuga as a clerk for the West India Com¬ 
pany of France. The company, however, found 
that although the buccaneers were quite willing 
to purchase goods it was quite another matter 
when it came to paying for them, and as a result, 
the West India Company abandoned their agency 
in Tortuga and gave orders that all their goods 
and chattels on the island should be sold for what 
they would bring. This included servants of the 
company as well, and Esquemeling found himself 
sold for a slave for thirty pieces of eight. His 
master was a cruel, tyrannical man and abused 
his Dutch slave shamefully, although offering to 
let him buy his freedom for three hundred pieces 
of eight. Esquemeling, however, as he says him¬ 
self, ‘was not master of one in the whole world.’ 
Finally Esquemeling became weak and ill from 
abuse and inadequate food, and his cruel master, 
fearing the man would die and he would be out 
of pocket and without a slave as well, disposed of 
the sick Hollander for seventy pieces of eight. 
His new master was a surgeon and a kindly man 
and, having doctored Esquemeling and restored 
him to health and strength, at the end of a year 
he gave him his liberty, exacting only the promise 

[ 19 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

that Esquemeling should pay him one hundred 
pieces of eight when in a position to do so. Be¬ 
ing, as he himself says, ‘at liberty but like unto 
Adam when he was first created, that is, naked 
and destitute of all human necessities,’ and with 
no means of earning a livelihood, Esquemeling 
threw in his lot with the buccaneers and he re¬ 
mained with them for a number of years. Being 
by profession a clerk, Esquemeling kept the logs 
and accounts of the buccaneers and also a journal 
of his own in which he recorded all the details and 
events of his adventurous life. His work is, in 
fact, the only authentic account of these men, and 
his quaint phraseology and droll remarks are very 
amusing. I have the book here, boys, and you’ll 
find it more interesting and absorbing than any 
story or fiction of the buccaneers that ever was 
written. 

“The first buccaneer of note with whom 
Esquemeling sailed was Bartholomew Portugues, 
so called as he was a native of Portugal. Portu¬ 
gues left Jamaica in a small ship of four small 
carronades with a crew of thirty men, and went 
cruising off Cuba. A few days later he met a 
heavily armed galleon bound to Havana from 
Cartagena and at once attacked her. Although 

[ 20 ] 


SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 

the Spaniard carried a crew of over seventy, 
in addition to passengers, and was armed with 
twenty heavy cannon, yet Portugnes assaulted 
the Dons without hesitation and after a des¬ 
perate battle in which nearly fifty Spaniards 
were killed and wounded, the buccaneers took the 
galleon with a loss of only ten men killed and four 
wounded. Owing to contrary winds Portugues 
could not return directly to either Tortuga or 
Jamaica and so set sail for Cape San Antonio at 
the western extremity of Cuba. There he made 
necessary repairs to his prize and secured a sup¬ 
ply of fresh water. As they were setting sail the 
buccaneers were surprised by three great Spanish 
ships and, greatly outnumbered, were taken pris¬ 
oners and stripped of the booty they had so re¬ 
cently secured, a treasure of over ten thousand 
pieces of eight, in addition to valuable merchan¬ 
dise. We can imagine the chagrin of the buc¬ 
caneers at this turn of fate and no doubt they 
gave themselves up for lost. But luck was with 
them. Two days after they had been made pris¬ 
oners a great storm arose, the vessels became 
separated and the one containing the buccaneers 
was driven to Campeche in Yucatan. When the 
residents learned that Portugues and his fellows 

[ 21 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

were captives on board there was great rejoicing, 
and the authorities sent off to the ship demanding 
that the buccaneers be delivered to them. After 
a consultation, however, it was decided safer to 
leave the prisoners aboard and in preparation for 
a general hanging a number of gibbets were 
erected on shore. These were in plain view of 
the buccaneers, and Portugues resolved to make a 
desperate effort to escape and to cheat the ex¬ 
pectant Dons of the grewsome spectacle. He man¬ 
aged to secure two earthen wine jars and, having 
plugged their necks with the idea of using them 
as floats, he waited patiently for darkness. But 
the sentry, who hitherto had been a careless, 
sleepy fellow, was unusually alert, and seeing this, 
Portugues seized a knife which he had surrepti¬ 
tiously obtained and, to quote Esquemeling, ‘gave 
him such a mortal stab as suddenly deprived him 
of life and the possibility of making any noise.’ 
Then the buccaneer captain leaped into the sea 
and aided by his extemporized water-wings man¬ 
aged to gain the shore. But his troubles had only 
begun. At once the hue and cry of his escape was 
raised, and for three days Portugues concealed 
himself in a hollow tree without food while the 
Dons searched all about. At last, abandoning 

[ 22 ] 


SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 

their hunt, the Spaniards returned to the town, 
and Portugues set out afoot for the Gulf of 
Triste, where he hoped to find other buccaneers 
to aid him in rescuing his comrades. 

“It is almost impossible to imagine what this 
meant or the seemingly insurmountable hardships 
the buccaneer captain deliberately faced, and it is 
also a most striking example of the faithfulness 
of the buccaneers to one another, which was one 
of the chief causes why they were so successful. 
Remember, Portugues was unarmed, for he had 
left the knife in the sentry’s back, he was without 
food, he had been half starved by his captors, and 
yet he calmly set out on a one hundred and fifty 
mile tramp through the jungle and along the 
jagged rocks of the seacoast; through a country 
infested by mosquitoes and stinging insects, by 
savage hostile Indians, and through swamps reek¬ 
ing with malaria. Every settlement and town had 
to be avoided, as they were all filled with his 
enemies, the Spaniards, and throughout that long 
and terrible journey the buccaneer subsisted en¬ 
tirely upon the few shellfish he found along the 
shore and upon the roots of forest herbs. 

“Moreover, several large and many small rivers 
crossed his route and not being able to swim his 

[ 23 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


case seemed hopeless. But while searching about 
the banks of the first large stream, looking for 
a possible ford, he found an old plank with a few 
large spikes in it. After tremendous efforts he 
managed to withdraw these nails and with infinite 
patience whetted them against stones until he 
secured a sharp knifelike edge. Just think of 
that, boys, when you read of modern hardships 
endured by men left to their own resources in a 
forest. Imagine rubbing a ship’s spike back and 
forth upon a stone until it has been transformed 
into a knife! 

“But the preparation of the nails, incredible as 
it sounds, was not the worst of his labors. With 
these crude implements the buccaneer actually 
hacked off branches of trees, cut vines and pliant 
reeds and with these constructed a raft with which 
he crossed the stream. At every large river he 
repeated the work and eventually arrived safely 
at the Gulf of Triste fourteen days after escaping 
from the ship. Here, as he had expected, he found 
a buccaneer vessel with a captain whom he knew 
and, telling of his comrades’ plight, he begged the 
captain to lend him a boat and twenty men to go 
to his men’s rescue. This the captain gladly did, 
and eight days later, Portugues was back at Cam- 

[ 24 ] 


SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 

peche. So small was the boat that the Spaniards 
never dreamed that its occupants were enemies or 
buccaneers, but thought it a craft from shore 
bringing off cargo, and they watched it approach 
without the least fear or preparations for defense. 

4 ‘Thus the buccaneers completely surprised the 
Dons and after a short, sharp struggle were in 
possession of the ship and had released the im¬ 
prisoned buccaneers—or rather most of them, for 
the Dons had hanged a few. 

“Realizing that other Spanish vessels might 
appear and attack him with overwhelming force 
at any time, Portugues at once set sail in the ship 
wherein he had so long been a helpless captive, 
and once more in possession of his booty with 
vast riches in addition. Steering a course for 
Jamaica he was off the Isle of Pines when the 
fickle fate which always followed him once more 
turned her back and the ship went upon the reefs 
of the Jardines. The ship was a total loss and 
sunk with all her treasure, while Portugues and 
his comrades barely escaped with their lives in a 
canoe. Although they managed to reach Jamaica 
without misfortune, luck had deserted Portugues 
for all time and while he tried time after time to 
recoup his fortunes all his efforts were in vain. 

[ 25 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


He became an ordinary seaman and was soon for¬ 
gotten. 

“ Another buccaneer whose exploits were as re¬ 
markable as Portugues’ and whose most notable 
exploits also took place in Yucatan, was a Dutch¬ 
man who was nicknamed Rock Brasiliano, owing 
to his long residence in Brazil. As an ordinary 
mariner he joined the buccaneers in Jamaica and 
soon so distinguished himself by his bravery and 
resourcefulness that when, after a dispute with his 
captain, he deserted the ship, he was chosen chief 
by a number of his fellows and, securing a small 
vessel, he set forth to capture a prize. Within 
a few days he seized a large Spanish ship with 
a vast treasure aboard which he carried into 
Jamaica in triumph. This exploit at once brought 
him fame and men flocked to his service. But, un¬ 
like Portugues, who seems to have been a very 
decent and respectable sort of rascal, Brasiliano 
was a drunken, brutal scallawag. As Esquemel- 
ing says, ‘ Neither in his domestic or private af¬ 
fairs had he good behavior or government over 
himself.’ When drunk, as he always was when 
ashore, his favorite amusement was to race up 
and down the streets, beating, stabbing or shoot¬ 
ing all whom he met, very much as our Western 

[ 26 ] 


SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 

‘bad men’ used to ‘shoot up’ a town in the old 
days. 

“Moreover, Brasiliano was unspeakably blood¬ 
thirsty and cruel. Whenever he captured Span¬ 
iards he put them to the most horrible tortures, 
and in order to force them to reveal the hiding 
places of their treasures he would flay them alive, 
tear them limb from limb or roast them on spits 
over slow fires. As a result, he became a feared 
and dreaded man, and the mere mention of his 
name caused the Dons to shudder and to huddle 
within their stockades. Nevertheless Brasiliano 
was a brave, a resourceful and a most remarkable 
man and performed some most noteworthy ex¬ 
ploits. On one occasion he was cruising off the 
coast of Yucatan when a violent storm drove his 
ship upon the rocks, and he and his men escaped 
with only their muskets and a slender stock of 
ammunition. They landed on a desolate, un¬ 
inhabited stretch of coast midway between Cam¬ 
peche and the Gulf of Triste and, quite un¬ 
deterred by their plight, commenced an overland 
march towards the Gulf exactly as Portugues had 
done. But they had not proceeded far when they 
were surprised by a cavalcade of over one hun¬ 
dred Spanish horsemen. Despite the fact that 

[ 27 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

the buccaneers numbered less than thirty, yet they 
had no thought of either retreat or surrender, but 
at once prepared to meet the oncoming cavalry. 
Expert marksmen as they were, a Don fell for 
every bullet fired and for an hour the handful 
of buccaneers kept the Spaniards at bay until, 
finding the cost too heavy, the cavalry retreated 
towards the town. Killing the wounded and 
stripping the dead of their arms and equipment, 
the buccaneers continued on the journey mounted 
on the horses of the dead Dons, the total loss of 
Brasiliano’s forces being but two killed and two 
wounded. Quite encouraged by their success, the 
buccaneers approached a little port and saw a 
boat lying at anchor in the harbor and protecting 
a fleet of canoes that were loading logwood. With 
little trouble the buccaneers captured the canoes 
and with wild shouts and yells bore down upon 
the little gunboat. The Spaniards aboard, terri¬ 
fied at sight of the buccaneers, surrendered after 
a short fight, but, to the buccaneers’ chagrin, they 
found scarcely any provisions on their prize. 
This did not trouble them long, however, and 
promptly killing the Spaniards’ horses they 
dressed them, salted the meat and, thus equipped, 
sailed forth to capture more vessels. In this they 

[ 28 ] 


SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 

were highly successful, and in a few weeks Bra- 
siliano sailed into Port Royal with nearly one hun¬ 
dred thousand pieces of eight and much merchan¬ 
dise. But the buccaneers invariably wasted all 
their hard-won money recklessly. It was not un¬ 
common for one of them to spend several thousand 
pieces of eight in a single night of drinking, gam¬ 
bling and carousing and so, within a few days, 
Brasiliano and his men were forced to go to sea 
again. Having had good fortune at Yucatan, he 
set sail for Campeche, but fifteen days after his 
arrival on the coast he was captured with several 
of his men while spying on the city and harbor in 
a canoe. They were at once cast into a dungeon to 
await execution, but Brasiliano was by no means 
at the end of his resources. By some method he 
managed to secure writing materials and com¬ 
posed a most wonderful letter purporting to be 
written by another buccaneer chief and in which 
the supposed author threatened dire reprisals on 
any Spaniard captured by the buccaneers if Bra¬ 
siliano and his men were harmed. This epistle 
was delivered to the Governor—though how on 
earth Brasiliano managed it no one knows—and 
His Excellency, having had plenty of experience 
with buccaneers, was so frightened at its contents 

[ 29 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


that he at once liberated his prisoners, only exact¬ 
ing an oath that they would abandon buccaneer¬ 
ing. Then, to insure their keeping their promise, 
he sent them as sailors on a galleon bound for 
Spain. With their wages from the trip they at 
once returned to Jamaica and, regardless of 
pledges, were soon harassing and murdering the 
Dons right and left. 

“But neither Portugues or Brasiliano could 
compare in cruelty, daring, bloodthirstiness or 
rascality with Francis L’Ollonois. In his youth 
L’Ollonois was transported to the West Indies as 
a bond servant, or virtually a slave, and, winning 
his freedom, made his way to Tortuga and joined 
the buccaneers. 

“So unspeakably cruel and bestially inhuman 
was this Frenchman that even his fellow buc¬ 
caneers sickened of his ways and Esquemeling 
speaks of him as ‘that infernal wretch’ or ‘that 
despicable and execrable pirate.’ For a time 
after joining the Brethren of the Main, L’Ollonois 
served as a common seaman, but his courage and 
reckless daring soon brought him to the attention 
of Monsieur de la Place, the governor of Tortuga, 
who was heartily in sympathy with the buccaneers. 
The governor therefore provided L’Ollonois with 

[ 30 ] 


SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 

a ship and outfitted him, the agreement of course 
being that La Place should have a share of the 
booty taken. Within a very short time L’Ollonois 
had taken several vessels and immense riches, 
while his awful cruelties made him a dreaded and 
famed character throughout the Caribbean. In¬ 
deed, so merciless was he that the Dons, rather 
than surrender to the monster, would leap into 
the sea or blow out their own brains, knowing that 
quick death by any means was preferable to the 
tortures they would endure at L’Ollonois ’ hands. 
His first disaster occurred when his ship was 
wrecked on the coast of Yucatan. The men all 
escaped, but were immediately attacked by the 
Spaniards, who killed the greater portion of the 
buccaneers and wounded L’Ollonois. Seeing no 
means of escape the captain smeared himself with 
blood and sand and crawling among the dead 
bodies lay motionless. The Dons were completely 
fooled and, not recognizing L’Ollonois and think¬ 
ing him merely a dead sailor, left the field after 
a brief search for the buccaneer chief, whereupon 
he made for the woods and lived upon roots until 
his wounds healed. Then, having stolen garments 
from a Spaniard whom he killed, the rascal walked 
calmly into Campeche. Here he conversed with 

[ 31 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


several slaves and, promising them liberty in re¬ 
turn for their services, he succeeded in getting a 
large canoe and with the slaves to help he reached 
Tortuga in safety. In the meantime the Span¬ 
iards were rejoicing at thought of the dread 
L’Ollonois being killed, for his men, who had been 
made prisoners, told the Dons that he had fallen 
in the battle. 

“His next raid was on the town of Cayos in 
Cuba, and word of his approach was sent post¬ 
haste to the governor at Havana. We can readily 
imagine the amazement and terror of His Excel¬ 
lency when this dreaded buccaneer, who was sup¬ 
posed to be safely dead at Campeche, bobbed up 
alive and well at Cuba. At first the governor 
could not believe it, but nevertheless he dispatched 
a ship with ten guns and with a crew of eighty 
to attack the buccaneers and commanded the cap¬ 
tain not to dare to return unless he had totally 
destroyed the pirates. In addition, he sent aboard 
a negro as a hangman with instructions that every 
buccaneer taken alive should be hanged, with the 
exception of L’Ollonois, who was to be brought 
alive to Havana. No doubt the governor wished 
to make sure of the buccaneer chieftain’s death 
this time, but fate decreed otherwise. Instead 

[ 32 ] 


SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 


of trying to escape, the buccaneers, when they 
learned of the warship coming to attack them, 
set forth in two canoes and unexpectedly bore 
down on the Spanish ship as she lay at anchor 
in the Estera River. It was two o’clock in the 
morning when they drew near the doomed vessel, 
and the watch, seeing the canoes and not dream¬ 
ing that they contained buccaneers, hailed them 
and asked if they had seen any pirates. To this 
the buccaneers replied that they had seen no 
pirates or anything like them. The watch thus 
satisfied was turning away when the canoes 
dashed close and the buccaneers swarmed over 
the ship’s rails. Taken completely by surprise, 
still the Dons put up a gallant fight and for some 
time the battle raged desperately. But, as usual, 
the buccaneers, though but twenty-one all told, 
triumphed and drove the surviving Spaniards into 
the hold. Then, stationing his men by the hatch¬ 
way with drawn swords, L’Ollonois ordered the 
prisoners to come up one at a time, and as fast as 
they appeared his men struck off their heads. The 
last to appear was the negro hangman who begged 
piteously for mercy, but L’Ollonois, after tortur¬ 
ing him to confession of various matters, mur¬ 
dered him like the rest. Only one man was spared 

[ 33 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


and to him L’Ollonois gave a note addressed to 
the governor in which he informed His Excellency 
of the fate of his men and assured him that he 
would never give quarter to any Spaniard and 
only hoped to be able to torture and kill His 
Excellency as well. 

4 ‘With the ship captured from the Spaniards, 
L’Ollonois cruised along the Spanish Main, took 
several ships and returned to Tortuga with the 
idea of fitting out a large company of ships and 
boldly attacking the Spanish towns and cities, as 
well as their vessels. The fleet he gathered to¬ 
gether consisted of eight ships, the largest carry¬ 
ing ten guns, and with six hundred and sixty buc¬ 
caneers. But long before they reached the South 
American coast they were flushed with success. 
Near Porto Rico they captured a ship of sixteen 
guns laden with cacao and with treasure consist¬ 
ing of forty thousand pieces of eight and over ten 
thousand dollars’ worth of jewels, and near the 
island of Saona they took the payship of the Dons 
and obtained nearly four tons of gunpowder, 
many muskets and twelve thousand pieces of 
eight. It would be tiresome to describe in detail 
their arrival at Maracaibo, their taking of the 
forts and their capture of the town. The Span- 

[ 34 ] 


KB 



He managed to secure two earthen wine jars and plugged their 

NECKS WITH THE IDEA OF USING THEM AS FLOATS 







The buccaneers swarmed over the ship’s rails 




SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 

iards resisted valiantly, but were beaten back and 
then commenced a series of orgies, of cruelties 
and of inhumanities which are almost without an 
equal. The people, as soon as they realized the 
town would fall to L’Ollonois and his freebooters, 
took to the outlying country, and these refugees 
the buccaneers hunted down and dragged before 
their chief. In order to make them confess 
where they had hidden their valuables—although 
L’Ollonois had already obtained vast plunder— 
they were put on the rack, broken on the wheel, 
cut to pieces, flayed alive and subjected to every 
cruelty and torture the corsairs could devise. For 
fifteen days the buccaneers occupied the town and 
butchered and tortured the inhabitants until, con¬ 
vinced that no more loot could be secured, they 
left Maracaibo, sailed up the Lake and took the 
town of Gibraltar. Here they were ambushed and 
many killed, but in comparison to the losses of the 
Dons the buccaneers suffered little, losing but 
forty men killed and about fifty wounded, while 
over five hundred Spaniards were killed and sev¬ 
eral hundred taken prisoners. Many of the cap¬ 
tives died from starvation or illness under the 
buccaneers’ treatment, many more were butchered 
for pure sport and hundreds were put to the tor- 

[ 35 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


ture. Then, not satisfied, L’Ollonois threatened 
to burn the town unless he was paid ten thousand 
pieces of eight and when this was not instantly 
forthcoming he actually set fire to the place. 
However, the money being eventually paid, the 
buccaneers had the decency to aid the inhabitants 
in putting out the conflagration, for, oddly enough, 
they usually kept to their promises, and after 
eighteen days set sail for Maracaibo again. Here 
they demanded a payment of thirty thousand 
pieces of eight under penalty of having the town 
destroyed, and the poor harassed and cowed Dons 
managed to raise the sum and with heartfelt 
thanks saw the fleet sail away. When Tortuga 
was reached and a division of spoils made it was 
found that over two hundred thousand pieces of 
eight had been taken in addition to immense stores 
of silks, gold and silver plate and jewels. 

4 ‘Hardly had he landed when L’Ollonois pre¬ 
pared for another raid and with seven hundred 
men set sail with six ships for Honduras. Here 
the beastly buccaneer chief tortured and killed 
and robbed to his heart’s content, but finding com¬ 
paratively little loot and thinking the inhabitants 
had secreted their wealth, he became mad with 
fury and outdid all his former inhuman acts. On 

[ 36 ] 


SOME BUCCANEERS AND THEIR WAYS 

one occasion, when a prisoner insisted that he did 
not know the route to a certain town, L’Ollonois 
slashed open the fellow’s breast with his sword, 
tore out his still throbbing heart and bit and 
gnawed at it with his teeth, as Esquemeling says, 
‘like a ravenous wolf,’ and threatened to serve the 
other prisoners in the same manner unless they 
showed him the way to San Pedro. This they 
did, but the Spaniards had placed ambuscades and 
the buccaneers were compelled to fight savagely 
every inch of the way. Finally the Dons agreed 
to deliver the town if the buccaneers would grant 
quarter for two hours, but no sooner was the time 
up than L’Ollonois hurried his men after the 
people, robbed them of what they had and slaugh¬ 
tered them without mercy. But L’Ollonois was 
too bestial and cruel even for his own men. A 
short time after the sack of San Pedro, dissen¬ 
sions arose and the party divided, the majority 
of the buccaneers leaving with Moses Yanclein to 
raid the coast towns of Costa Rica and Panama. 
From that time on L’Ollonois had nothing but ill 
luck and soon afterwards his ship was wrecked 
off Cape Gracias a Dios. With the remains of the 
wreck, the buccaneers set to work to construct a 
small boat, and to sustain themselves, planted 

[ 37 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


gardens. For six months they were marooned 
until the boat was completed, and L ’Ollonois, with 
part of his crew, set out for the San Juan River 
in Nicaragua. But fate had turned against him 
which as Esquemeling naively remarks, ‘had 
long time been reserved for him as a punishment 
due to the multitude of horrible crimes which in 
his wicked life he had committed.’ Attacked by 
the Spaniards and their Indian allies, he was 
forced to retreat with heavy loss and, still hoping 
to retrieve his fortunes, headed southward for the 
coasts of Darien. And here the villain met with 
the end he so richly deserved. He was taken by 
the savage Indians of the district, was torn to 
pieces while alive and his limbs cast into a fire. 
Finally, that no trace or memory of him might re¬ 
main, the savages scattered his ashes in the air. 


[ 38 ] 


CHAPTER III 


MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 

U GH!” exclaimed Jack, as bis father 
ceased speaking. 4 ‘Wasn’t he the 
most awful creature! Gosh, I always 
thought the buccaneers were brave men and he¬ 
roes.” 

“There is no question of their bravery,” replied 
Mr. Bickford, “and L’Ollonois was an exception¬ 
ally cruel villain. But as a rule the buccaneers 
were no more cruel or bloodthirsty than the Span¬ 
iards or even their more respectable countrymen. 
You must remember that human standards have 
changed a great deal since the days of the buc¬ 
caneers. In their time human life was held very 
cheaply. The theft of a few cents’ worth of mer¬ 
chandise was punishable by death. Men and 
women had their ears cut off, their tongues pierced 
or their eyes put out for most trivial crimes, and 
torture by rack, wheel or fire was considered a per¬ 
fectly legitimate means of securing confessions of 
guilt from suspected persons. We must not there¬ 
fore judge the buccaneers too harshly. To us they 

[ 39 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


appear inhuman monsters, but in their days they 
were no worse than the usual run of men. More¬ 
over, you must remember that their crews were 
made up of the roughest, toughest element. 
Renegades, fugitives from justice, criminals, cut¬ 
throats and thieves, and that they looked upon 
the Spaniards as natural enemies and worthy of 
no more pity or consideration than wild beasts. 
Finally, consider the temptation that ever spurred 
them on and excited their passions and their worst 
instincts. Gold and riches were to be had for the 
taking, the Dons were legitimate prey, and they 
were beyond the pale of the law, if not actually 
protected by the authorities. Take a crowd of 
sailors to-day, give them arms and a ship, and 
license to kill, rob and destroy, and you would find 
them as reckless, as cruel and as devilish as the 
old buccaneers, if not more so. And much of their 
success depended upon the reputation they had 
for cruelty. The very mention of some of the 
more famous pirates’ names would create a panic 
among the Dons and make victory comparatively 
easy, and for this reason the buccaneers prac¬ 
ticed cruelties that were absolutely uncalled for, 
but which they looked upon as a part of their pro¬ 
fession.” 


[ 40 ] 


MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 


“It seems to me the Spaniards were awful cow¬ 
ards,” said Fred, as his uncle paused. “They 
were always licked by the buccaneers, although 
there were more of them.” 

“That’s a great mistake,” Mr. Bickford assured 
him. “In nearly every case the Spaniards showed 
marvelous bravery and courage in resisting the 
buccaneers and in several instances their courage 
was absolutely heroic. Very often they refused 
to surrender until every man fell, and time and 
time again their commanders committed suicide 
when they found that resistance was hopeless. 
But they were fearfully handicapped. The buc¬ 
caneers knew beforehand just what to expect and 
the strength of the garrisons, they usually at¬ 
tacked at night and they invariably surprised the 
Dons. The Spaniards had no idea how many men 
were attacking, and they were packed together in 
forts, stockades or towns, while the buccaneers 
could scatter, could seek the shelter of trees or 
buildings and were constantly on the move. Fi¬ 
nally, the buccaneers were expert marksmen, 
trained woodsmen and were absolutely reckless 
of life and limb while, in addition, the Spaniards 
knew that the more valiantly they resisted the 
less quarter they would receive in the end. Per- 

[ 41 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

haps there are no better examples of the Span¬ 
iards’ bravery than that shown by the garrisons 
of Porto Bello and of San Lorenzo, which were 
taken by Sir Henry Morgan, the most famous of 
the buccaneers.” 

“Oh, do tell us about him!” cried the two boys 
in unison. 

6 ‘ Very well, ’ ’ laughed Mr. Bickford. i ‘ But I’m 
afraid your ideals will be rudely shattered when 
you learn the truth of Morgan, and before I tell 
you of his most famous exploits let me ask you 
a question. Have you any idea how long Morgan 
was a buccaneer or how long his career of fame 
lasted!” 

“Why, no,” replied Jack. “I never thought 
about it, but I suppose it was years and years.” 

“I thought he was a buccaneer all his life,” de¬ 
clared Fred. 

Mr. Bickford smiled. “Nearly all the famous 
buccaneers led short lives and merry ones,” he 
said. “But of them all I think the famous Mor¬ 
gan’s career was the shortest. From the time he 
first came into notice as a corsair until he dropped 
out of sight was barely five years, and all his most 
famous or rather infamous exploits took place 
within a space of three years.” 

[ 42 ] 


MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 

( “Jiminy, lie must have been a fast worker!” 
exclaimed Jack. 

“ Yes, he was what you might call a ‘hustler,’ ” 
laughed his father. “And it undoubtedly was the 
speed with which he carried out his nefarious 
projects that made him successful to a large ex¬ 
tent. But like many another famous man, Mor¬ 
gan’s deeds have been greatly exaggerated, and 
his real character was very different from that 
we are accustomed to attribute to him, for ro¬ 
mance, imagination and fiction have, through the 
passing years, surrounded him with a halo of false 
gallantry, bravery and decency. In reality Mor¬ 
gan was an ignorant, unprincipled, ruthless, des¬ 
picable character, utterly selfish and heartless, 
dishonorable and with scarcely a redeeming trait, 
aside from personal courage. But like many of 
the buccaneers he displayed most remarkable and 
contradictory traits at times. It is said that when¬ 
ever a priest or minister fell into his clutches he 
compelled the clergyman to hold divine services 
on the ship, and that on more than one occasion, 
he shot down his own men for not attending 
service or for disrespectful behavior during a re¬ 
ligious ceremony. What became of the unfortu¬ 
nate clerics after Morgan was done with them is 

[ 43 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

not recorded, but the chances are that he com¬ 
pelled them to walk the plank or put an end to 
their careers in some equally summary manner, 
for that was ‘Harry Morgan’s way,’ as he was 
fond of saying.” 

“But tell me, Dad,” asked Jack, “did the buc¬ 
caneers always kill or torture their prisoners?” 

■» 

“No,” his father assured him. “As a rule 
they treated their prisoners with consideration. 
Some of the more bloodthirsty tortured and 
butchered them out of hand, but in most cases the 
prisoners were either held for ransom or were set 
ashore or turned loose in boats. It was, in a way, 
to the buccaneers’ advantage to give quarter, for 
they knew that in case any of their number fell 
into the Spaniards’ hands they would be treated 
according to the way they had treated Spanish 
captives—or perhaps worse—for the Dons were 
past masters in the art of devising most atrocious 
tortures. 

“And before I tell you of Morgan and his deeds 
let me point out one or two other matters which 
will help you t*o understand much that would 
otherwise puzzle you boys and which is little 
known. In several places—as in the Isle of Pines 
off Cuba—the Spaniards were friendly with the 

[ 44 ] 



MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 

buccaneers and gladly aided them, while the 
corsairs made it a point always to pacify and 
maintain friendly relations with the Indians. 
This was a most important matter for them. All 
along the South and Central American coasts were 
Indian tribes, and the buccaneers depended very 
largely upon the red men for provisions, canoes 
and guides. The Indians hated the Dons and will¬ 
ingly joined the buccaneers against them, and even 
the most savage tribesmen usually welcomed the 
freebooters and helped them in every way. More¬ 
over, they knew the country and were most valua¬ 
ble as guides and pilots, and there are innumera¬ 
ble records of the buccaneers showing the greatest 
forbearance towards the savages. Even when 
they were attacked by Indians with whom they 
had not established relations they refrained from 
retaliating, but either propitiated the natives or 
moved bag and baggage from the locality, and the 
most severe punishment was meted out to the 
buccaneers by their leaders if they molested the 
Indians or interfered with them in any way. As 
a result, many of their greatest triumphs were 
made possible by their Indian allies. 

“But to return to Morgan. He was, by birth, a 
Welshman, the son of a well-to-do farmer, but his 

[ 45 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


imagination being fired by tales of adventure in 
the "West Indies he ran away from home and 
reached Bristol with the intention of shipping on 
a vessel bound to Barbados. But young Mor¬ 
gan knew little of what was to befall him. Ac¬ 
cording to a common custom of those days the 
master of the ship sold him as a bond servant, 
or in other words a slave, as soon as the ship 
reached Barbados, and the embryo buccaneer 
found himself far worse off than as a farmer’s 
boy in Wales. Nevertheless, he served his time, 
secured his liberty and made his way to Jamaica, 
which was then the headquarters of the English 
buccaneers. 

4 4 And now let me digress a bit and explain how 
a British colony happened to be a notorious lair 
of the buccaneers. You remember that I told you 
about Tortuga and how the British and French 
freebooters had disputes and dissensions and that 
the English corsairs transferred their headquar¬ 
ters to Port Royal, Jamaica. At that time, you 
must remember, Spain and England were at war, 
and the British authorities gladly gave commis¬ 
sions as privateers to the buccaneer leaders. 
Thus they were looked upon, not as pirates, but as 
auxiliaries of the British navy, and even after 

[ 46 ] 


MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 

peace was declared and they continued to prey 
upon the Spaniards, the authorities winked at 
them. They brought vast sums to the island ports, 
spent it recklessly and freely, and disposed of the 
merchandise they had taken for a mere song. As 
a result, the ports prospered and became rich 
through their dealings with the buccaneers; mer¬ 
chants and traders did a lively business, shipyards 
and outfitting shops sprang into existence; drink¬ 
ing places, gambling houses and every form of 
vice catered to the corsairs and thrived amazingly, 
and every one prospered. The buccaneers thus 
had safe refuges where they could spend their 
loot, refit their ships and organize their expedi¬ 
tions, and they were careful not to molest or in¬ 
jure the inhabitants or their property. Indeed, 
Jamaica’s prosperity was largely built upon the 
trade with the corsairs, and not until infamous 
Port Royal was utterly destroyed by an earth¬ 
quake on June 7, 1692, and the ‘wickedest city in 
the world’ slid bodily into the sea, with all its 
riches and over three thousand of its inhabitants, 
did it cease to be a clearing house, a gigantic 
‘fence’ and a haven for the buccaneers. Then the 
few survivors, frightened, feeling that the wrath 
of God and His vengeance for their wickedness 

[47] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

had been visited upon them, moved across the bay 
and founded the present city of Kingston and 
paved the way for a respectable and honest de¬ 
velopment of the island.” 

“Gosh, I should think some one would go down 
there and get back all that treasure!” exclaimed 
Fred. 

“It’s rather strange that no one has attempted 
it,” said Mr. Bickford. “The water is not deep— 
in calm weather the outlines of the ruins may still 
be traced under the sea—and the native colored 
folk tell weird tales of ghostly pirate ships tack¬ 
ing back and forth at dead of night, striving to 
find the lost port; of the bells of the pirates’ 
church tolling through storms from beneath the 
waves, and of spectral figures walking the beach 
and gazing seaward as though awaiting ships that 
never come.” 

“Did the buccaneers have a church!” cried Jack 
in surprise. 

“I don’t wonder you ask,” replied his father. 
“Yes, that was one of the odd things about them. 
Altogether the buccaneers were most paradoxical 
rascals. With all their villainies many of them 
were deeply religious at times and there are in¬ 
stances—as I shall tell you later—of crews actu- 

[48] 


MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 

ally mutinying because their captains made them 
work on Sunday and did not hold services aboard 
their ships. They seemed to feel that their no¬ 
toriously wicked stronghold at Port Royal was 
not complete without a church and so they built 
one. They fitted it with bells taken from some 
raided church of the Dons, they provided altar 
pieces, vestments, candelabra and holy vessels of 
gold and silver, chalices set with priceless jewels, 
even paintings and tapestries torn and looted 
from the desecrated churches and cathedrals of 
the Spanish towns, and attended services in a 
house of God made a mockery and a blasphemy 
by its fittings won by blood and fire and the mur¬ 
der of innocent men, women and children. 

“And it was to this den of iniquity, this world- 
famed lair of the buccaneers, that young Morgan 
came after gaining his liberty in Barbados. Per¬ 
haps he had no idea of turning corsair and in¬ 
tended to get honest employment or even to make 
his way back to his father’s farm in Wales. But 
whatever his purpose may have been he found no 
ready means of earning a livelihood and enlisted 
as a seaman on a buccaneer ship. He was an apt 
pupil and was thrifty, and after the first two or 
three voyages he had saved enough money from 

[ 49 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

his share of plunder to purchase a ship, or rather 
a controlling interest in one. He now was a full- 
fledged buccaneer captain and in his own vessel 
set sail for Yucatan, where he took several prizes 
and returned triumphantly to Jamaica. Here he 
met an old corsair named Mansvelt, who was 
busy organizing an expedition to pillage the towns 
along the Main, and Mansvelt, seeing in Morgan 
a most promising young villain, offered him the 
post of Vice Admiral of his fleet. With fifteen 
ships and five hundred men, Mansvelt and Morgan 
sailed away from Port Royal and swept down on 
the island of Old Providence—then known as St. 
Catherine—off the Costa Rican coast, and which 
at the time was strongly garrisoned by the Span¬ 
iards. After a short battle the island surrendered, 
and the buccaneers, after plundering the place, de¬ 
stroying the forts and burning the houses, sailed 
off with their holds crowded with prisoners. 
These they put safely ashore near Porto Bello 
and then cruised along the coasts of Panama and 
Costa Rica. The Dons, however, were everywhere 
on the lookout and every town swarmed with 
troops. Realizing that an attempt to take the 
places would be well nigh useless the buccaneers 
returned to St. Catherine, where they had left 

[ 50 ] 



MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 

one hundred of tlieir men, to find that the buc¬ 
caneer in charge—Le Sieur Simon—had repaired 
the forts and defenses until the place was well 
nigh impregnable. Mansvelt’s idea was to retain 
the island as a basis for piratical raids against the 
mainland, but he realized that he could not expect 
to hold it with his handful of men, so he set out 
for Jamaica to enlist the aid of the governor. 
His Excellency, however, frowned on the proposal. 
Not that he was unwilling to aid his buccaneer 
friends, but he realized that any such overt act 
must reach the ears of His Majesty the King and, 
moreover, he could ill spare the necessary men 
and guns from the garrison at Jamaica. Not de¬ 
spairing of carrying out his project, Mansvelt 
made for Tortuga with the idea of getting help 
from the French, hut before he arrived he died. 
Meanwhile the buccaneers at St. Catherine real¬ 
ized their reenforcements were not forthcoming 
and decided to abandon the place, but before this 
could be done they were attacked by a superior 
force of Spaniards and surrendered. Evidently, 
too, the wily Governor of Jamaica had been think¬ 
ing over the matter and surreptitiously dispatched 
a party of men and a number of women in a Brit¬ 
ish ship to St. Catherine. Never suspecting that 

[ 51 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

the isle had fallen into the Dons’ hands they sailed 
boldly in and were made prisoners and were trans¬ 
ported to Porto Bello and Panama, where the 
men were forced to labor like slaves at construct¬ 
ing fortifications. 

“ Morgan now, by Mansvelt’s death, was in 
command of the fleet, and with the idea of carry¬ 
ing out his former chief’s intentions he wrote let¬ 
ters to various prominent merchants in New Eng¬ 
land and Virginia, asking for funds and supplies 
to enable him to retain possession of St. Cath¬ 
erine. Before replies were received, however, he 
had word of the recapture of the island by the 
Spaniards and, abandoning this project, set out 
for Cuba. His original idea was to attack Ha¬ 
vana, but deeming his force of twelve ships and 
seven hundred men too small for this he decided 
upon Puerto Principe—now known as Camagiiey 
?—as the town to ravage. This town, which had 
originally been upon the northern coast of Cuba, 
had been moved inland to escape the raids of the 
buccaneers, but this fact did not deter Morgan in 
the least. Landing upon the coast, Morgan and 
his men started overland, but unknown to them a 
Spanish prisoner on one of the ships had managed 
to escape and, swimming ashore, had made his 

[ 52 ] 



MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 

way to the town and had warned the inhabitants. 
As a result, the people were up in arms, the roads 
were barricaded, and the buccaneers were forced 
to approach through the jungle. 

11 After a short but bloody battle the buccaneers 
gained the town, but the Dons, barricaded in their 
houses, kept up a galling fire until Morgan sent 
word that unless they surrendered he would burn 
the city and cut the women and children to pieces 
before the Spaniards’ eyes. This threat had its 
effect, and the Dons at once surrendered. There¬ 
upon Morgan immediately imprisoned all the 
Spaniards in the churches without food or drink, 
and proceeded to pillage, drink and carouse. 
These diversions they varied by dragging forth 
the half-starved prisoners and torturing them to 
make them divulge the hiding places of their 
wealth, but fortunately for the poor people, the 
majority of women and children perished for want 
of food before Morgan and his men could wreak 
more terrible deaths upon them. Finally, finding 
nothing more could be secured, Morgan informed 
the survivors of the citizens that unless they paid 
a large ransom he would transport them to Ja¬ 
maica to be sold as slaves and would burn the 
town. The Dons promised to do their best, but 

[ 53 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

finally, feeling convinced that they could not raise 
the sum and that to remain longer in the vicinity 
might result in disaster, Morgan consented to 
withdraw upon delivery of five hundred head of 
cattle. These being furnished, he compelled the 
prisoners to drive the beasts to the coast and to 
butcher, dress and salt them and load the meat 
aboard his ships. While this was going on Morgan 
exhibited one of his odd kinks of character which 
were always creeping out. One of the French 
buccaneers was busily cutting up and salting an 
ox for his own use when an English corsair came 
up and calmly took possession of the marrow 
bones. Words and insults resulted, a challenge 
was issued and a duel arranged, but as they 
reached the spot selected for the fight the English¬ 
man drew his cutlass and stabbed the Frenchman 
in the back, killing him treacherously. Instantly 
the other French buccaneers started an insurrec¬ 
tion, but before it had gone far Morgan interposed, 
ordered the offending Englishman chained and 
promised to have him hanged when they reached 
Jamaica, which he did. 

“The taking of Puerto Principe, although a 
notable exploit, was, nevertheless, a most unprofit¬ 
able venture, the entire booty obtained amounting 

[ 54 ] 


MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 


to barely fifty thousand pieces of eight. As a re¬ 
sult, the men were so dissatisfied that the French 
buccaneers refused to follow Morgan farther. 
Morgan’s next exploit was the most daring that 
the buccaneers had ever attempted, for it was 
nothing more or less than an attack upon the sup¬ 
posedly impregnable forts of Porto Bello, the 
Atlantic terminus of the Gold Road across the 
Isthmus of Panama.” 

“Please, Dad, what was the Gold Road?” asked 
Jack, as his father paused. 

‘ ‘ TheGoldRoad, ’ ’ answered his father , 1 i was the 
roughly paved highway leading from the old city 
of Panama on the Pacific to Nombre de Dios and 
Porto Bello on the Caribbean. If you will look 
at the map here you will see Porto Bello situated 
about twenty-five miles east of Colon with Nombre 
de Dios just beyond. Nombre de Dios, however, 
was abandoned after its capture by Sir Francis 
Drake, and the terminus of the road became Porto 
Bello. To-day the place is of no importance—a 
small village of native huts—but the ruins of the 
old castles and forts are still standing in a good 
state of preservation, and the place is historically 
very interesting. Moreover, just off the port Sir 
Francis Drake’s body was buried at sea. But to 

[ 55 ] 



THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

resume. The Gold Road was the only route from 
the Pacific to the Atlantic and over it all the vast 
treasures won by the Spaniards from the west 
coasts of North, South and Central America and 
Mexico were transported on mule-back to be 
shipped to Spain. Over it were carried the mil¬ 
lions in gold, silver and jewels of the Incas; over 
it was carried the output of countless fabulously 
rich mines, incalculable wealth in pearls from the 
islands oft Panama, emeralds from Colombia, bul¬ 
lion and plate, the stupendous wealth wrested by 
the ruthless Dons from Indian princes, princesses 
and kings; such a treasure as the world had never 
seen before. In long mule trains the vast wealth 
was carried over the Gold Road through the jungle, 
escorted by armed men, accompanied by shackled 
slaves, and in Porto Bello it was stored in the 
great stone treasure house to await the galleons 
and their armed convoy to carry it to Spain. Nat¬ 
urally, with such incredible fortunes stored in 
Porto Bello, the Spaniards used every effort and 
spared no expense to make the place so impregna¬ 
ble that there was no chance of its falling to the 
buccaneers, and in all New Spain, aside from Ha¬ 
vana, there was no spot more strongly fortified 
and garrisoned than Porto Bello. The defenses 

[ 56 ] 


MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 

consisted of two immense castles or forts, several 
batteries and outlying bastions and a garrison of 
nearly four hundred men, all seasoned veterans 
and heavily armed. To attack this formidable 
spot Morgan had nine vessels, several of them 
small boats, and a total force of four hundred and 
sixty men. No buccaneer had dreamed of attack¬ 
ing Porto Bello since the completion of its de¬ 
fenses—although in 1602 it had been taken and 
sacked by William Parker—but Morgan counted 
on a complete surprise, an assault made under 
cover of darkness from the land side and con¬ 
ducted by one of his men who had once been a 
prisoner in Porto Bello. 

“ Arriving at the River Naos, they traveled up¬ 
stream a short distance and then struck out 
through the forest. As they neared the city, Mor¬ 
gan sent the former prisoner of the Spaniards, 
with several men, to kill or capture the sentry at 
the outlying fort, and, creeping upon him, they 
made him a prisoner before he could give an 
alarm and brought him bound and gagged to Mor¬ 
gan. Under threat of torture and death if he 
gave an alarm, the fellow was marched before the 
buccaneers and, without being seen, they sur¬ 
rounded the first fort. Their prisoner was then 

[57] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

ordered to call to the garrison, tell them an over¬ 
whelming force had surrounded them and advise 
them to surrender or otherwise they would be 
butchered without mercy. The garrison, however, 
spurned the advice and instantly commenced firing 
into the darkness. Although their shots did little 
damage, yet they served to arouse the city and 
prepare the other forces for the attack. With wild 
yells and shouts the battle was on, and although 
the Dons fought most valiantly the outlying fort 
fell to the buccaneers, and Morgan, as good as his 
word, put every living occupant to death, think¬ 
ing this would terrorize the other garrisons. In 
order to do this the more effectually, Morgan shut 
the survivors, men and officers together, in a store¬ 
room and, rolling in several kegs of powder, blew 
the entire company to bits. Then, like fiends, he 
and his men rushed towards the city. All was con¬ 
fusion, despite the warning the Spaniards had 
received, and the inhabitants, who had not had 
time to reach the protection of the forts, rushed 
screaming hither and thither, casting their valua¬ 
bles into wells and cisterns, hiding in corners and 
filled with terror. Bursting into the cloisters, the 
buccaneers dragged out the monks and nuns and 
urging them with blows and pricks of their swords, 

[58] 


MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 

forced them to raise the heavy scaling ladders to 
the walls of the forts, Morgan thinking that the 
Dons would not fire upon the religious men and 
women. But in this he was mistaken. The Gov¬ 
ernor, who throughout had been stoutly defending 
the castle, had held his own and had wrought ter¬ 
rific execution upon the buccaneers. Time after 
time the corsairs rushed forward through the 
storm of bullets and round shot, striving to reach 
the castle doors, but each time the Dons hurled 
grenades, burning tar, hot oil and molten lead 
upon them and drove them back. And when Mor¬ 
gan threatened to force the nuns and priests to 
place the ladders the brave old Governor replied 
that ‘ never would he surrender wdiile he lived/ and 
that he ‘ would perform his duty at any costs. ’ De¬ 
spite the piteous appeals of the friars and the nuns 
as they were beaten forward to the walls, the Gov¬ 
ernor gave no heed and ordered his men to shoot 
them down as though they were buccaneers. 
Carrying fireballs and grenades which they heaved 
among the garrison, the buccaneers poured over 
the parapets. Knowing all was lost, the soldiers 
threw down their arms and begged for quarter, but 
the courageous Governor, sword in hand, backed 
against a wall and prepared to resist until the last. 

[59] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

Even the buccaneers were won by bis bravery and 
offered quarter if be would surrender, but bis only 
answer was to taunt them and shout back that, 
4 1 would rather die a valiant soldier than be 
hanged as a coward. ’ 

“So struck was Morgan by the man’s heroism 
that he ordered his men to take him alive, and over 
and over again they closed in upon him. But he 
was a magnificent swordsman; before his thrusts 
and blows the buccaneers fell wounded and dead, 
and deaf to the entreaties of his wife and children, 
the brave man fought on. At last, finding it im¬ 
possible to make him prisoner, Morgan ordered 
him to be shot down, and the brave old Don fell, 
with his blood-stained sword, among the ring of 
buccaneers he had killed. The castle was now in 
Morgan’s hands, and, gathering together the 
wounded Spaniards, he callously tossed them into 
a small room, ‘to the intent their own complaints 
might be the cure of their hurts, for no other was 
afforded them,’ as Esquemeling puts it. 

“Then, devoting themselves to a wild orgy of 
feasting and drinking, the buccaneers gave them¬ 
selves up to debauchery and excesses until, as 
Esquemeling points out, they were so maudlin 

[ 60 ] 


MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 

that 4 fifty men might easily have taken the city 
and killed all the buccaneers.’ But unfortunately 
the fifty men were not available, and on the fol¬ 
lowing day as usual the buccaneers proceeded to 
loot the town and torture the people into confes¬ 
sions of the hiding places of their riches. Many 
died on the rack or were torn to pieces, and while 
the buccaneers were practicing every devilish 
cruelty they could invent, word of the taking of 
Porto Bello had been carried by fugitives to the 
governor of Panama. He immediately prepared 
to equip an expedition to attack the buccaneers, 
but before it arrived Morgan was getting ready 
to leave, having been in possession of Porto 
Bello fifteen days. Before departing, however, he 
sent word to the Governor General, demanding a 
ransom of one hundred thousand pieces of eight 
if he did not wish Porto Bello burned and de¬ 
stroyed. Instead of sending the ransom, the Gov¬ 
ernor dispatched a force of armed men to attack 
the buccaneers. This Morgan had expected, and, 
stationing a hundred of his men in ambush in a 
narrow pass, he put the Spaniards to rout and re¬ 
peated his threats to the people of the unfortunate 
town. By hook and by crook the inhabitants man¬ 
tel] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


aged to raise the huge sum, and Morgan com¬ 
menced his evacuation in accordance with his 
promise. 

“As he was doing so a messenger arrived from 
the Governor General bearing a letter requesting 
Morgan to send him ‘some small pattern of the 
arms wherewith he had, by such violence, taken a 
great city.’ Evidently the Governor imagined 
that the buccaneers possessed some novel or mar¬ 
velous arms, for he could not believe that the place 
had fallen to the English through ordinary means. 
Morgan received the messenger courteously and 
with a flash of grim humor handed him a pistol 
and a few bullets, telling him to carry them to the 
Governor and to inform him that ‘he desired him 
to accept that slender pattern of arms wherewith 
he had taken Porto Bello and to keep them for a 
twelvemonth, after which time he would come in 
person to Panama and fetch them away.’ 

“Evidently, too, the haughty old Governor had 
a sense of humor, for ere Morgan sailed away the 
messenger returned, bearing a message of thanks 
from the Governor, a gold ring which he was re¬ 
quested to accept with His Excellency’s compli¬ 
ments and a letter stating that Morgan ‘need not 
give himself the trouble of visiting Panama, for 

[ 62 ] 


MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME 


he could promise that he should not speed as well 
there as he had at Porto Bello.’ 

“With the vast loot he had won, a treasure 
amounting to a quarter of a million pieces of eight, 
thousands of bales of silks, vast stores of mer¬ 
chandise and fabulous sums in bullion, plate and 
jewels, Morgan left the harried shores of Panama 
and set sail for Port Royal, where he arrived in 
safety and was welcomed and lauded as the great¬ 
est buccaneer of them all.” 


[ 63 ] 


CHAPTER IV 


THE SACKING OF MARACAIBO 

“TPIUT I thought Morgan was Governor of 
Jamaica and a ‘Sir/ ” said Jack. 

“He was. I’m coming to that pres¬ 
ently,” replied his father. “Of course, Morgan, 
having taken Porto Bello and thus won the great¬ 
est fame, buccaneers flocked to him, begging for 
a chance to join him on his next expedition. In¬ 
deed, he could have easily raised a force of several 
thousand men, but Morgan, despite his faults, was 
a wise man, a born leader and an experienced buc¬ 
caneer and he knew that too large a force would 
be a disadvantage. But realizing that he could 
command any number of ships and men, he fore¬ 
saw the possibility of accomplishing such feats as 
no buccaneer had ever before undertaken. Nam¬ 
ing the Island of La Vaca, or Cow Island, south 
of Santo Domingo, as a rendezvous, Morgan and 
his old captains set sail and there awaited the 
coming of the buccaneers. And from every lair 
they flocked to his standard. French and English, 

[64] 


THE SACKING OF MARACAIBO 

Dutch and Danes, from Tortuga Samana, the Vir¬ 
gins and the Caymans, they sped to join their 
fortunes with Morgan. Even the Governor of 
Jamaica sent forth a ship, a brand-new vessel from 
New England mounting thirty-six guns, the larg¬ 
est buccaneer ship that had ever borne down upon 
the hapless Dons. Next in size to her was a 
French ship, a vessel of twenty-four iron guns 
and tw r elve brass carronades which happened to be 
lying at anchor at the island. Upon her Morgan 
cast envious eyes and used every argument to in¬ 
duce her captain to join with him. The French, 
however, were distrustful of the English and flatly 
refused. And then the redoubtable Morgan 
showed his teeth and proved himself the cowardly, 
underhand, treacherous rascal that he was in real¬ 
ity. It seemed that some time previously this big 
French vessel had been short of provision at sea 
and, meeting a British buccaneer, had secured sup¬ 
plies, giving in payment not ready cash but bills 
of exchange on Jamaica and Tortuga. Knowing 
of this, Morgan, finding he could not induce the 
French captain to join him, seized upon the inci¬ 
dent as a means to carry out his nefarious ends. 
Inviting the French commander and his officers to 
dine aboard his ship, Morgan received them hos- 

[ 65 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

pitably, but no sooner were they seated than he 
and his men whipped out pistols, seized the French¬ 
men and bound them as prisoners. Stating that 
he had seized them as pirates for having taken 
provisions from a British ship without pay, he in¬ 
formed the unhappy Frenchmen that he intended 
to hang them and to confiscate their ship as warn¬ 
ing to others. But fate intervened and brought 
a just and speedy retribution upon Morgan and 
his men for their treacherous act. Having thus 
possessed himself of the French flagship, Morgan 
called a council at which it was agreed to go to 
Saona Island and wait for the plate fleet from 
Spain. Then, as usual, the buccaneers boarded 
their ships and held a farewell feast in celebration 
of their coming voyage, drinking, carousing and, 
as was customary, discharging their guns in salute 
to one another. Half drunk, hilarious and care¬ 
less, the men did not notice that a gun discharged 
upon the big flagship of the fleet dropped a bit of 
smoldering wadding onto the deck. There was a 
terrific explosion and the vessel was blown to bits, 
destroying three hundred and fifty English buc¬ 
caneers and the unfortunate French prisoners 
who were confined in the hold. Only thirty mem¬ 
bers of the crew, including Morgan, escaped, they 

[ 66 ] 


THE SACKING OF MARACAIBO 


having been within the cabin at the high poop of 
the vessel and away from the main force of the 
explosion. 

“But instead of being a wholesome lesson to 
Morgan and his fellows, this accident only en¬ 
raged them, and, claiming that their ship had been 
blown up by the French prisoners—despite the 
fact that they were manacled and far from the 
magazine—they at once seized all the French ships 
in the harbor and sent them with their crews as 
prisoners to Jamaica, with word that they had 
been found with papers authorizing them to com¬ 
mit piracy against the British. In reality the 
papers were merely permits from the Governor 
of Barracoa permitting the French to trade in 
Spanish ports and to 6 cruise against English 
pirates,’ the clause being inserted as a cloak to 
cover the reason for the permits. But despite 
their protests and the fact that they had repeat¬ 
edly aided the English buccaneers against the 
Dons, Morgan’s influence was such that the 
Frenchmen were imprisoned and several were 
hanged when they reached Jamaica. 

“Morgan’s brutality was still further shown 
when, eight days after the explosion, he sent out 
boats to gather up the bodies of the buccaneers 

[67] 



THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


which were now floating about, not, as Esquemel- 
ing assures us, ‘with the design of affording them 
Christian burial, but only to obtain the spoil of 
their clothes and attire.’ Rings were cut from 
their dead fingers, earrings torn from their ears, 
iheir weapons and garments stripped from the 
corpses and the naked bodies cast back for the 
sharks. Then, the loot from tfieir dead comrades 
having been auctioned off, the buccaneers set sail 
with fifteen ships—the largest carrying fourteen 
guns—and nine hundred and sixty men. 

“Sending some of his ships and men to plunder 
the farms and villages of Santo Domingo for pro¬ 
visions and cattle, Morgan continued to Saona. 
But his men met with reverses on the island, many 
of the buccaneers were killed, and though they es¬ 
caped they were empty-handed and dared not re¬ 
turn to Morgan with their tale of reverses. Im¬ 
patient at the delay, Morgan at last decided to go 
on without them, and, with his fleet reduced to 
eight ships and a force of five hundred men, he 
started for the Gulf of Maracaibo. 

“Since it had been looted by L’Ollonois, Mara¬ 
caibo and its neighboring city of Gibraltar had 
prospered and grown immensely rich, the fortifi¬ 
cations had been greatly strengthened and a Span- 

[ 68 ] 


THE SACKING OF MARACAIBO 

isli fleet was constantly cruising near to prevent 
raids by the buccaneers. Arriving off tbe port at 
night, Morgan drew close to the harbor bar un¬ 
seen and opened fire at daybreak. From morn 
until night the battle raged until, feeling that they 
could not hold out another day, the garrison 
evacuated the fort at nightfall and left a slow 
match leading to the magazine in the hopes of 
blowing up the buccaneers if they entered. In this 
they were very nearly successful, but Morgan him¬ 
self discovered the burning fuse and stamped it out 
when within six inches of the explosives. 

“Finding his ships could not enter the shallow 
harbor, Morgan embarked in boats and canoes and 
after terrific fighting silenced one fort after an¬ 
other and took the town. Then began an awful 
scene of butchery and torture. All that L’Ollonois 
had done in the stricken town before was repeated 
a hundredfold. The people, rounded up and 
shackled, were broken on the wheel, torn to pieces 
on the rack, spread-eagled and flogged to a pulp. 
Burning fuses were placed between their fingers 
and toes. Wet rawhide thongs were twisted about 
their heads and allowed to dry until, as they 
shrunk, the wretches’ eyes burst from their skulls 
and many were cut to pieces a bit at a time or 

[69] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

flayed alive. Those who had no treasures whose 
hiding place they could divulge died under their 
torments, and those who confessed were too far 
gone to recover. For three terrible weeks this 
awful work went on, the buccaneers sparing 
neither young nor old, men, women or children, 
and daily scouring the countryside to bring new 
victims to the torture chambers. Then, satisfied 
he had every cent that it was possible to secure, 
Morgan loaded his remaining prisoners on his 
ships and sailed for Gibraltar as L’Ollonois had 
done. He had sent prisoners ahead, demanding 
the surrender of the town and threatening to tor¬ 
ture and butcher every living soul if resistance 
were made, but notwithstanding this the inhab¬ 
itants and the garrison put up a stiff fight. Find¬ 
ing he could not take the place by assault, Morgan 
started his men overland through the woods, and 
the people, realizing the buccaneers would take 
the place, fled with what valuables they could 
gather into the country, first having spiked the 
guns and destroyed the powder in the forts. As 
a result the buccaneers entered the city without a 
shot fired and found no living soul save one half¬ 
witted man. Despite the fact that he was a de¬ 
mented, helpless creature the buccaneers ruth- 

[70] 


THE SACKING OF MARACAIBO 

lessly placed him on the rack until he begged for 
mercy and promised to guide his tormentors to 
his riches. Following him, they were led to a tum¬ 
ble-down house containing nothing of any value 
with the exception of three pieces of eight—all 
the poor man’s earthly possessions. The buc¬ 
caneers, however, had gotten a crazy idea that the 
fellow was a rich man masquerading as a dunce, 
and when in reply to their question he announced 
that his name was ‘Don Sebastian Sanchez’ and 
‘I am brother to the Governor,’ instead of being 
convinced that he was crazy, the buccaneers be¬ 
lieved his ridiculous words and tortured him anew. 
Despite his shrieks and heart-rending appeals he 
was racked, his limbs were stretched by cords 
passed over pulleys and with immense weights at¬ 
tached to them, he was scorched to a crisp by 
burning palm leaves passed over his face and 
body, and not till the miserable wretch had died 
after half an hour of this fiendish torment did the 
buccaneers cease their efforts to wring from him 
the secret of his supposed wealth. 

“The next day the buccaneers captured a poor 
farmer and his two daughters and threatened 
them with torture, but the cowering wretches 
agreed to lead the buccaneers to the hiding places 

* [71] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

of the inhabitants. Seeing their enemies coming, 
the Spaniards fled still farther, and the disgruntled 
Englishmen hanged the peasant and his daughters 
to trees by the wayside. The buccaneers then set 
diligently at work, scouring the countryside for 
prisoners. In one spot they captured a slave, and, 
promising him freedom and vast amounts of gold 
if he would show them the hiding places of the 
Dons, he readily agreed and led them to a secluded 
house where the buccaneers made prisoners of a 
number of Spaniards. Then, to make sure that 
their slave guide would not dare desert them, the 
buccaneers forced him to murder a number of the 
helpless Dons before the eyes of the others. This 
party of Spaniards totaled nearly two hundred 
and fifty and these the buccaneers examined one 
at a time, torturing those who denied knowledge 
of treasure. One man, over seventy years old, a 
Portuguese by birth, was reported by the treacher¬ 
ous slave to be rich. This the old fellow stoutly 
denied, claiming that his total wealth was but one 
hundred pieces of eight and that this had been 
stolen from him two days previously. In spite of 
this and his age, the buccaneers, under Morgan’s 
personal orders, broke both his arms and then 
stretched him between stakes by cords from his 

[72] 


THE SACKING OF MARACAIBO 

thumbs and great toes. Then, while suspended in 
this way, the inhuman monsters beat upon the 
cords with sticks. Not content with this, they 
placed a two hundred pound stone upon his body, 
passed blazing palm leaves over his face and head, 
and then, finding no confession could be wrung 
from him they carried*him to the church and lashed 
him fast to a pillar where he was left for several 
days with only a few drops of water to keep him 
alive. How any mortal could have survived— 
much, less an aged man—is miraculous, but live 
he did and finally consented to raise five hundred 
pieces of eight to buy his liberty. The buccaneers, 
however, scoffed at this, beat him with cudgels 
and told him it would take five thousand pieces of 
eight to save his life. Finally he bargained for 
freedom for one thousand pieces, and a few days 
later, the money having been paid, he was set at 
liberty, though, as Esquemeling tells us, ‘so hor¬ 
ribly maimed in body that Tis scarce to be believed 
he survived many weeks after/ 

“But even these fearful and disgusting torments 
were mild as compared to some that Morgan in¬ 
flicted on the men and women in his mad lust to 
wring their riches from them. Dozens were cruci¬ 
fied, others were staked out by pointed sticks 

[73] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

driven through them into the earth; others were 
bound with their feet in fires, others roasted alive. 
For five long, awful weeks they continued their un¬ 
speakable atrocities until, finding further efforts 
useless, and fearing that his retreat to sea would 
be cut off, Morgan left the stricken town, carrying 
a number of prisoners for hostages. 

1 ‘At Maracaibo they learned that Spanish war¬ 
ships had arrived and that three armed ves¬ 
sels were blockading the harbor mouth. The 
largest of these carried forty guns, the second 
thirty and the smallest twenty-four. That the 
buccaneers, with no heavy guns and with only 
small vessels, could escape seemed impossible, but 
Morgan once more showed himself the resourceful 
commander and sent a Spanish prisoner to the 
Admiral in command of the ships demanding a 
free passage to sea as well as a ransom if Mara¬ 
caibo was not to be burned. To this the Admiral 
replied contemptuously, telling Morgan that, pro¬ 
vided he would surrender all the plunder and pris¬ 
oners he had taken, he would allow him and his 
men to depart, but otherwise would totally de¬ 
stroy them and give no quarter. This letter Mor¬ 
gan read aloud to his men, asking them whether 
they preferred to fight or lose their plunder. The 

[74] 


THE SACKING OF MARACAIBO 

reply was unanimously that they had rather fight 
till their last drop of blood rather than abandon 
what they had won. Then one of the men sug¬ 
gested that they fit up a fire ship, disguise her by 
logs of wood dressed as men on deck and with 
dummy cannon at the ports, and let her drift down 
on the Spanish vessels. Although all approved 
the idea, still Morgan decided to try guile and 
diplomacy—with a deal of bluff—before resorting 
to strenuous measures. Consequently he dis¬ 
patched another messenger to the Admiral, offer¬ 
ing to quit Maracaibo without firing it or exacting 
ransom, and agreeing to liberate all the prisoners 
if he and his men were allowed to pass. But the 
doughty old Spanish commander would have none 
of this and replied that unless Morgan surrendered 
according to the original terms within two days 
he would come and take him. 

“ Finding cajolery useless, Morgan at once hus¬ 
tled about to make the most of his time and to try 
to escape by force. A ship taken at Gibraltar was 
loaded with brimstone, powder, palm leaves soaked 
in pitch and other combustibles. Kegs of powder 
were placed under the dummy guns and dressed 
and armed logs were posed upon the decks to re¬ 
semble buccaneers. Then all the male prisoners 

[75] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

were loaded into one boat; all the women, the plate 
and the jewels into another; the merchandise and 
things of lesser value in a third. Then, all being 
ready, the little fleet set forth with the fireship 
in the lead. It was on the 30th of April, 1669, 
that the buccaneers started from Maracaibo on 
this desperate, dare-devil effort to escape, and 
night was falling as they sighted the three 
Spanish warships riding at anchor in the mid¬ 
dle of the entry to the lake. Unwilling to pro¬ 
ceed farther, Morgan anchored his boats, main¬ 
tained a sharp watch and at daybreak hoisted an¬ 
chors and headed directly for the Spanish ships. 
Realizing that Morgan was actually about to at¬ 
tempt to battle with them, the Dons hoisted an¬ 
chors and prepared to attack. Manned by its cour¬ 
ageous if villainous crew, the fireship crashed 
straight into the Spanish flagship and instantly its 
men threw grappling irons, binding their com¬ 
bustible vessel to the warship and then, touching 
match to fuses, took to the small boats. Before the 
Dons realized what had happened the fireship was 
a blazing mass; the powder exploding threw flam¬ 
ing tar and brimstone far and near; and in an in¬ 
credibly short space of time the Spanish flagship 
was a seething, roaring furnace and, blowing in 

[76] 



Sir Henry Morgan, 


THE MOST FAMOUS OF THE BUCCANEERS, WITH ONE 
OF HIS CREW 






Burning the galleon 




THE SACKING OF MARACAIBO 

two, sank to the bottom of the lake. Meanwhile the 
second warship, fearing a like fate, was run ashore 
by its crew and was set afire by the Spaniards to 
prevent her falling into the buccaneer’s hands, 
while the third ship was captured by Morgan’s 
men. 

“But Morgan and his men were not out of the 
trap yet. The forts controlled the harbor entrance 
and, flushed with their easy victory over the ships, 
the buccaneers landed and attacked the castle. 
But they failed miserably in this and after heavy 
losses withdrew to their boats. 

“The following day Morgan, having made a 
prisoner of a Spanish pilot and learning from him 
that the sunken ships carried vast riches, left a 
portion of his men to recover what they could and 
sailed back to Maracaibo with the captured war¬ 
ship. Here, being once more in a position to dic¬ 
tate terms, he sent a demand to the Admiral, who 
had escaped and was in the castle, demanding 
thirty thousand pieces of eight and five hundred 
head of cattle as his price for sparing the town 
and his prisoners. He finally consented to accept 
twenty thousand pieces of eight with the cattle, 
however, and the following day this was paid. 

[77] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

But Morgan was shrewd and refused to deliver 
the prisoners until he was out of danger and had 
cleared the harbor, and with his captives set sail. 
To his delight he found that his men had recov¬ 
ered nearly twenty thousand pieces of eight in 
coins and bullion from the sunken ships, but he 
was still doubtful of being able to pass the forts. 
He thereupon notified his prisoners that unless 
they persuaded the Governor to guarantee him 
safe passage he would hang all the captives on his 
ships. In view of this dire threat a committee of 
the prisoners went to His Excellency, beseeching 
him to grant Morgan’s demands. But Don Alonso 
was no weakling. His reply was to the effect that, 
had they been as loyal to their King in hindering 
the buccaneer’s entry as he intended to be in pre¬ 
venting their going out that they would not have 
found themselves in such troubles. Very crest¬ 
fallen the poor fellows returned with the ill news. 
But for once Morgan was not as ruthless as was 
his wont and forgot all about his threat to execute 
the blameless captives. He, however, sent word 
to Don Alonso that if he was not permitted to pass 
he would get by without a permit and, feeling that 
he might fail, he at once proceeded to divide the 

[78] 


THE SACKING OF MARACAIBO 


booty. This totaled over a quarter of a million 
pieces of eight in money, vast quantities of plate 
and jewels, silks, merchandise of various kinds 
and many slaves. 

“ All being properly divided, the question arose 
as to how the little flotilla would pass to sea under 
the heavy guns of the castle, but this Morgan 
accomplished by a most brilliant ruse. On the day 
before he planned to make his dash he loaded his 
canoes with men and had them paddled towards 
the shore as if intending to land them. Here, 
among the low-hanging foliage, the boats waited 
for a while and then, with all but two or three 
men lying flat in the bottoms of the canoes, they 
paddled back to the ships. This was repeated 
over and over again, and the Spaniards, seeing 
canoes full of men coming ashore and apparently 
empty craft returning, were convinced that Mor¬ 
gan intended to make an attack on the land side of 
the fort. In order to defend themselves the Dons 
moved practically all their guns and the greater 
part of their men to the landward side of the 
castle, exactly as Morgan had foreseen. Then, as 
night fell, Morgan weighed anchor and without 
setting sail let his ships drift down with the ebb 

[79] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


tide. Not until they were under the walls of the 
fort were sails hoisted and all speed made towards 
the harbor mouth. 

“With shouts and cries the Dons gave the alarm 
and madly they ran and scurried to get their guns 
back in position, but the wind was fresh and fair 
and before the first shot was fired the buccaneers 
were almost out of range. A few balls tore 
through the sails, a few round shot splintered the 
bulwarks and the high poops, and a few men fell, 
but the damage was of little moment. Out of 
reach of the guns, Morgan brought his ships to, 
and, loading his prisoners into small boats, sent 
them ashore. Then, with a parting shot of seven 
guns in a broadside, Morgan spread sails once 
more and headed for Jamaica.” 


CHAPTER V 


THE TAKING OF SAN LORENZO 

W ELL, he certainly was clever for all 
his cruelty,’ ’ said Fred. “But 
what a beast he was. Seems to me 
he was the worst of all the buccaneers. Even 
L’Ollonois had some good points.’’ 

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Bickford. “Morgan could 
have made a name for himself as a great general, 
or an admiral, perhaps, if he had turned his tal¬ 
ents to honest purposes. But he was too much of 
a rascal and too unprincipled to succeed for long, 
even in piracy. When he returned from taking 
Maracaibo he believed there was nothing he could 
not successfully carry out and he began to con¬ 
sider taking even richer and more strongly forti¬ 
fied spots than those he had ravished. 

“At that time the three richest cities in the New 
World were Cartagena, Panama and Vera Cruz, 
and of these the richest was Panama. To Panama 
all the wealth and treasure from the western coasts 
of South and Central America and Mexico and 

[ 81 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


the Orient were brought, as well as the fortunes 
in pearls from the pearl islands, and from Pan¬ 
ama, as I have already explained, the riches were 
carried over the Gold Road to Porto Bello. 

“But while Panama was so rich, yet it had been 
free from attacks by buccaneers owing to its posi¬ 
tion. It was on the Pacific and in order to reach 
it the buccaneers would be compelled either to 
sail around Cape Horn; cross the Isthmus over¬ 
land, or ascend tho Chagres River and then go 
overland. To cross by the Gold Road meant that 
the forts at Porto Bello would have to be taken, 
and even after that the buccaneers would be ex¬ 
posed to ambuscades and constant attacks and 
might well have their retreat cut off. At the 
mouth of the Chagres was a most powerful fort— 
San Lorenzo—commanding’ the river mouth, 
while Panama itself was very strongly fortified 
and protected. It seemed impossible that the buc¬ 
caneers could ever reach the place and yet that 
was just what Morgan planned to do. 

“Although it seemed a harebrained scheme, yet 
so famed had Morgan become that men flocked to 
his call, clamoring to go on the hazardous expedi¬ 
tion, and Morgan appointed the Island of Tortuga 
as the rendezvous. Here flocked the sea rovers 

[ 82 ] 


THE TAKING OF SAN LORENZO 

from far and near. They came in ships, boats, 
canoes and even tramped overland across hostile 
Hispaniola (Santo Domingo) to join him, until 
the greatest crowd of buccaneers and the greatest 
gathering of buccaneer ships the world had ever 
seen were assembled at Tortuga on October 24, 
1670. 

“To provision the fleet, Morgan equipped four 
ships with four hundred men and dispatched 
them to La Rancheria near the present port of Rio 
de la Hacha in Colombia. His plan was for them 
to raid the coast towns, seize what maize and cattle 
were required and come back with supplies and 
salted meat, thus obtained free of cost. In this 
the ships were more than successful, for, at the 
end of five weeks, they returned laden with maize 
and beef and with a huge amount of loot, for they 
had taken a Spanish ship, had seized the town and 
had robbed it and the inhabitants, and had re¬ 
sorted to all their customary barbarities to wring 
the last piece of eight from the people. 

“Everything was now in readiness, and Morgan 
set sail for Cape Tiburon, Haiti, where vessels 
from Jamaica were to join him. These brought 
his force up to thirty-seven ships and two thou¬ 
sand fighting men, exclusive of sailors and boys, 

[83] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

by far the greatest buccaneer force that ever had 
set sail to ravish the Spanish cities. Morgan’s 
flagship carried twenty-two large and six small 
guns, there were several ships of twenty, eighteen 
and sixteen guns and the smallest mounted four. 
Finding it impossible to command such a huge 
fleet by himself, Morgan divided it into two squad¬ 
rons with a vice admiral, commanders and cap¬ 
tains for each, and to these he issued elaborate 
commissions to act against the Spaniards, for all 
the world as though he were the King of Eng¬ 
land. 

“The next matter to attend to was the agree¬ 
ment as to compensation for death or accidents, 
and the trip was considered so hazardous that the 
amounts to be paid were double the usual sums. 
Then the fleet set sail for Old Providence or, as 
the buccaneers called it, -St. Catherine, for in order 
to be sure that his retreat was not cut otf, Mor¬ 
gan realized he must destroy this heavily forti¬ 
fied spot and leave a garrison of his own in charge. 
Moreover, he knew that outlaws and brigands were 
imprisoned there, and that these men, if released, 
would join his forces and would be invaluable as 
guides in crossing the Isthmus of Panama. 

“On the 29th of December, 1670, they reached 

[84] 


THE TAKING OF SAN LORENZO 

St. Catherine, which Morgan expected to take 
easily. However, since his former attack under 
Mansvelt, the Dons had greatly strengthened the 
forts. Landing about one thousand men, Morgan 
attempted to take the place by land, but the Span¬ 
iards kept up a galling fire, the buccaneers were 
without provisions—as they had expected to live 
off their enemies—and at night a pouring rain 
came on, drenching the buccaneers to the skin. 
At this time, so tired, hungry and miserable were 
the men that, had the Dons but known it, they 
could easily have wiped out the buccaneers with a 
force of less than one hundred men, and no doubt 
had they done so Panama would have been saved. 
The rain continued incessantly the next day and 
the buccaneers were able to do nothing. So 
starved and desperate were they that when an old 
horse was discovered in a field they instantly killed 
it and fought over it like wolves, devouring even 
the offal. By this time the men began to grumble, 
and even suggested giving up and became mu¬ 
tinous. Morgan, seeing that unless something was 
done at once his expedition would be a failure, 
resorted to his old game of bluff, and sent a canoe 
with a flag of truce to the Governor, demanding 
the surrender of the island and threatening to give 

[85] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


no quarter unless it was done at once. So terrified 
were the Dons that the Governor merely asked 
two hours to consider and at the end of that time 
sent to Morgan and ottered to deliver the place 
provided Morgan would agree to carry out a de¬ 
ception by which it would appear that the Gov¬ 
ernor was overpowered. 

‘ ‘ The proposition was that Morgan should come 
at night and open an attack on St. Jerome fort, 
while at the same time his fleet approached Santa 
Teresa fort and landed men at the battery of St. 
Matthew. The Governor was then to pass from 
one fort to the other and purposely fall into the 
buccaneer’s hands. He was then to pretend that 
the English forced him to betray his men and was 
to lead the buccaneers into St. Jerome. But he 
stipulated that no bullets should be used in the 
buccaneers’ guns and guaranteed that his men 
would fire into the air. To this treacherous 
scheme Morgan agreed and the island was of 
course taken in a sham battle. But within a short 
time His Excellency bitterly repented of his deed. 
The buccaneers looted right and left, they tore 
down houses to make fires for cooking the stolen 
poultry and livestock and they made prisoners of 
all the Spaniards on the island. These totaled 

[ 86 ] 


THE TAKING OF SAN LORENZO 

\ 

four hundred and fifty, including one hundred 
and ninety soldiers and eight bandits who at once 
joined Morgan’s force. As there was nothing in 
the way of valuables in the place the people es¬ 
caped the customary tortures, and, shutting the 
women in the churches, Morgan ordered the men 
into the country to secure provisions. 

“Having accumulated a vast supply of food, 
many tons of powder, immense quantities of arms 
and many cannon, Morgan prepared to attack 
San Lorenzo at the Chagres mouth. He had no 
mind to risk his own precious neck in this des¬ 
perate venture, however; hut making himself com¬ 
fortable at St. Catherine, he dispatched four ships 
with about four hundred men under Captain 
Brodely, a notorious buccaneer who had served 
with Morgan under Mansvelt. Anchoring his ships 
about three miles from the mouth of the Chagres, 
Brodely landed his men and attempted to attack 
the castle by land. But despite their brigand 
guides the buccaneers discovered that it was im¬ 
possible to approach the fort under cover, the 
country having been cleared for a long distance 
about the fort, while in addition the deep man¬ 
grove swamps made progress next to impossible. 
But the buccaneers dared not turn back and face 

[87] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


Morgan, and so, although fully exposed to the fire 
from the fort, they rushed across the open space 
with drawn swords in one hand and fireballs in 
the other, but the firing was terrific. The Dons 
had erected heavy palisades outside of the fortress 
walls, and presently the buccaneers were com¬ 
pelled to retreat. At nightfall, however, they 
made another assault, throwing their fire balls at 
the palisades, attempting to scale them and fight¬ 
ing like demons. But they were beaten off again 
and again, and their case seemed hopeless when, 
by the merest accident, fate played into their 
hands. In the heat of the assault, one of the buc¬ 
caneers was struck by an arrow in the back, which 
completely penetrated his body. Mad with pain, 
the fellow drew the missile out through his breast, 
wrapped a bit of rag around it and, dropping it 
into his musket, fired it back into the fort. 

“But the buccaneer’s hasty and unthinking act 
won the day for the corsairs. The cotton rag 
about the arrow caught fire from the powder, it 
fell unnoticed upon some palm-thatched houses 
within the fort, and ere the Dons realized what 
had happened the buildings were ablaze. Madly 
the Spaniards strove to quench the flames, but the 
fire was beyond control, it reached a magazine, 

[ 88 ] 


THE TAKING OF SAN LORENZO 

and there was terrific explosion. During the con¬ 
fusion and panic that ensued the buccaneers rushed 
to the palisades and, piling inflammable material 
about them, soon had them burning furiously. 
Presently the stakes began to fall, carrying down 
masses of earth that had been piled between them, 
and over these the yelling buccaneers swarmed to 
the assault. Under a rain of stink pots and fire 
balls, boiling oil and molten lead hurled at them 
by the garrison, the English fell everywhere, and 
at last, seeing they could not gain the inner works, 
they withdrew once more. 

“But despite their losses they were elated, for 
the palisades were blazing everywhere and by 
midnight they were entirely consumed. When 
morning dawned only the charred and fallen stakes 
remained and ^reat masses of earth had filled the 
ditch. The commandant, however, had stationed 
his men upon these mounds and both sides kept up 
an incessant fire of musketry. Within the castle 
the flames still raged, for the only available water 
in the fort was contained in a huge cistern in the 
lower part of the castle. Moreover, a party of 
the buccaneers was detailed to snipe the Spaniards 
fighting the fire and carrying water, while the 
others, hiding as best they could, picked off the 

[89] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


men at the guns and those guarding the fallen 
palisades. Noticing one spot where the Governor 
himself was stationed in command of twenty-five 
picked troops, Captain Brodely led a sudden 
charge and succeeded in taking the breach. 

“Even the buccaneers were amazed at the 
valiant resistance they met, and, in his chronicles 
of the battle, Esquemeling particularly calls at¬ 
tention to the courageousness of the Dons. Once 
within the walls, however, the battle was prac¬ 
tically won and, fighting hand to hand with pistols, 
pikes, daggers, swords and even stones, the Brit¬ 
ish and the Spaniards battled furiously. Not a 
Spaniard asked for quarter; the Governor fell, 
fighting to the last, with a bullet through his brain, 
and when finally the few survivors saw that their 
cause was hopeless they leaped from the parapets 
into the river rather than surrender. And when 
the buccaneers found themselves masters of the 
fortress they discovered that of the three hundred 
and fourteen soldiers who had formed the gar¬ 
rison only thirty remained alive, and of these over 
twenty were seriously wounded, while not a single 
living officer was to be found. 

“The buccaneers, however, were greatly troub¬ 
led, despite their hard-won victory—which had 

[90] 


THE TAKING OF SAN LORENZO 


cost them nearly two hundred men—for the pris¬ 
oners informed them that a party of volunteers 
had managed to steal from the fort, had passed 
through the buccaneers’ lines and had carried 
word of the attack and of Morgan’s coming to 
Panama. All plans of a surprise were now hope¬ 
less and realizing that quick work was necessary 
Captain Brodely at once sent a ship to St. Cath¬ 
erine bearing word to Morgan of the taking of 
San Lorenzo. 

“ Hastily lading his ships with provisions and 
the unfortunate prisoners he had taken, Morgan 
left a garrison of his own men in the strongest 
fort, burned the town, destroyed the other forts, 
cast the cannon into the sea and set sail for the 
Chagres. Eight days after the fall of the castle 
he arrived, but his men were so elated at seeing 
the British flag flying from the castle that they 
succeeded in running four of the ships onto a bar 
at the river’s mouth. One of these was Morgan’s 
flagship, and while all the goods and persons on 
the vessels were saved the ships were a total loss. 
As soon as he landed, Morgan ordered his St. 
Catherine prisoners to be put to work repairing 
the fort and setting up new palisades and, leaving 
a force of five hundred men at the fort and with 

[91] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


one hundred and fifty more upon his ships, Morgan 

I 

set sail up the Chagres in small boats with a force 
of two thousand two hundred men. Thinking to 
be able to supply himself and his men with pro¬ 
visions taken from the Spaniards, Morgan carried 
practically no supplies and this very nearly caused 
the utter failure of his expedition. 

“It was on the 18th of January, 1671, that Mor¬ 
gan left San Lorenzo in his five boats and thirty- 
two canoes, with several pieces of light artillery 
and all the pomp of a military organization, even 
to drummers and trumpeters. The first day they 
covered barely twenty miles, reaching a spot 
known as Los Bracos. But already the men were 
suffering from hunger and being cramped and 
crowded in the small boats. Landing, they went 
in search of food, but the Dons, having been fore¬ 
warned, had fled, carrying with them or destroy¬ 
ing everything edible, and the buccaneers were 
‘ forced to stay their bellies with a pipe of to¬ 
bacco.’ 

“The following day they continued to Cruz de 
Juan Gallego, but, finding the river very low and 
choked by fallen trees, they were here compelled 
to forsake the boats and march overland, leaving 
one hundred and sixty men to guard the boats and 

[92] 


THE TAKING OF SAN LORENZO 

their retreat. After a long march they reached a 
spot on the river where canoes could be used, and 
with infinite labor the company was transported 
up stream to Cedro Bueno. The buccaneers were 
by now on the verge of starvation, but there was 
nothing to do but keep on, and at noon on the 
fourth day they discovered a settlement. But not 
a soul was there and not a morsel to eat, save a 
few crumbs of bread and a number of leather bags. 
Famished, the buccaneers fell upon the leathern 
sacks and devoured them. For an account of this 
I can do no better than read you Esquemeling’s 
narrative. He says: < Thus they made a huge ban¬ 
quet of the bags of leather which doubtless would 
have been more grateful unto them if divers quar¬ 
rels had not arisen concerning who should have 
the greatest share. They conjectured that five 
hundred Spaniards had been there, more or less, 
and these they were now infinitely desirous to 
meet, intending to devour some of them rather 
than perish. Whom they would certainly in that 
occasion have roasted or boiled had they been 
able to take them. Some persons who were never 
out of their mothers’ kitchens may ask how these 
pirates could eat, swallow and digest those pieces 
of leather so hard and dry. To whom I only an- 

[93] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


swer: That could they once experiment with 
hunger, or rather famine, they would certainly 
find the manner, by their own necessity, as the 
pirates did. For these first took the leather and 
sliced it in pieces. Then did they beat it between 
stones and rub it, often dipping it in the water 
of the river to render it supple and tender. Lastly 
they scraped off the hair and roasted or broiled it 
over a fire. And thus being cooked they cut it in 
small morsels and eat it, helping it down with fre¬ 
quent gulps of water, which by good fortune they 
had near at hand.’ 

“And when night fell on the close of the fourth 
day and not a scrap of food had been found in any 
of the deserted settlements and camps, the pirate 
who had had the foresight to retain a small piece 
of leather was indeed a happy man, for the others 
went supperless to sleep. 

“At noon of the fifth day they reached Bar- 
bacoas, where in a cave, the buccaneers, to their in¬ 
tense joy, discovered two sacks of meal, two jars 
of wine and some bananas. These Morgan divided 
among the men who were suffering the most, and 
somewhat encouraged they proceeded on that ter¬ 
rible march. On the sixth day the men proceeded 
very slowly, partly from weakness and partly 

m 


THE TAKING OF SAN LORENZO 


owing to the rough character of the land, and to 
keep themselves alive they devoured grasses, 
leaves and roots. But at noon they found a barrel 
of corn at a deserted plantation and without wait¬ 
ing devoured it dry and raw. Hardly an hour 
later they met an ambuscade of Indians, and feel¬ 
ing confident that they would be victors and would 
secure plentiful provisions they threw away the 
precious corn. But to their chagrin the Indians, 
after discharging a shower of arrows, disappeared 
like shadows in the forest, leaving no food and 
nothing to mark their presence save half a dozen 
dead buccaneers. 

“On the seventh day the buccaneers prepared 
and cleaned their arms, expecting to meet resist¬ 
ance just ahead, and then, crossing the river, they 
hurried forward to the village of La Cruz. As 
they approached they saw smoke rising above the 
trees, and, convinced that this meant the place 
was occupied, they made all haste towards it. 
Judge of their disgust when they found the village 
deserted and in flames, with, as Esquemeling hu¬ 
morously remarks, ‘nothing wherewith to refresh 
themselves unless it were good fires to warm them- 
selves, which they wanted not.’ 

“But a search revealed something to eat—a 

[95] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


few stray dogs and cats which they butchered and 
devoured raw and bleeding, and hardly had they 
completed this horrid repast when a party of the 
men found a sack of bread and sixteen jars of 
wine in the ruins of a stable. Scarcely had they 
commenced to eat and drink, however, when they 
were taken violently ill, and they at once decided 
the wine had been poisoned, although, as their 
chronicler very wisely says, it was more probable 
that it was ‘ their huge want of sustenance in that 
whole voyage and the manifold sorts of trash they 
had eaten.’ 

“Whatever the cause, it compelled the expedi¬ 
tion to remain there for an entire day. This vil¬ 
lage, then called La Cruz, was on the site of the 
present Las Cruces, the head of navigation on the 
Chagres and from which a branch of the Gold 
Road led to Panama about twenty-five miles dis¬ 
tant. On the eighth day, Morgan sent forward a 
scouting party of two hundred men to find the best 
route and to learn of any ambuscades. This they 
did to their sorrow when, at Quebrada Obscura, 
they were met with a hurricane of arrows shot by 
Indians from hiding places in the deep forest on 
the summits of the canon’s walls. A number of 
the buccaneers were killed and many wounded and 

[96] 


THE TAKING OF SAN LORENZO 

a few Indians fell, but seeing such overwhelming 
numbers of the British approaching they soon took 
to their heels, and the buccaneers passed on and 
entered the savanna country. 

“Here they suffered greatly, being compelled to 
pass the night in the open in a pouring rain and 
enduring agonies from biting insects and mos¬ 
quitoes. On the morning of the ninth day they 
came to a steep hill from the summit of which 
they saw the Pacific gleaming in the sun and with 
two ships sailing from Panama to Taboga. 
Elated at finding themselves so near their goal 
they hurried down the slope and in a little meadow 
discovered a number of cattle, horses and asses. 
Hastily butchering and dressing these they kin¬ 
dled huge fires, half cooked the still warm flesh 
over the flames and gorged themselves like beasts. 
Indeed, to once more quote Esquemeling, ‘they 
more resembled cannibals than Europeans at this 
banquet, the blood many times running down from 
their beards to their middles/ 

“Continuing, they came at evening in sight of a 
party of two hundred Spaniards, who challenged 
them and then retreated, and before nightfall they 
saw the tower of the cathedral of Old Panama 
looming against the sky. Sounding their trum- 

[97] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


pets, beating their drums, throwing hats in air; 
leaping and shouting with joy, the buccaneers, 
knowing the end of their awful march was over, 
pitched their camp for the night in preparation of 
an assault on the morrow. 

“But the buccaneers were not to rest in peace. 
Fifty horsemen appeared, taunting and insulting 
the English just out of gunshot, and soon the big 
cannon of the forts began to thunder and roar 
and the shot fell all about the buccaneers’ camp. 
Soon thereafter a party of fully two hundred cav¬ 
alry galloped across the fields from the town, and 
presently the buccaneers discovered that they 
were completely surrounded and, from being the 
besiegers they had been transformed into the be¬ 
sieged. 

“But having done so much and survived, the 
rough corsairs gave no thought or worry to this 
and 1 began every one to open his satchel and with¬ 
out napkin or plate fell to eating very heartily the 
remaining pieces of bulls’ and horses’ flesh which 
they had reserved since noon. This being done 
they laid themselves down upon the grass with 
great repose and huge satisfaction, expecting only 
with impatience the dawning of the next day.’ 
Thus does Esquemeling describe that fateful 

[98] 


THE TAKING OF SAN LORENZO 


evening, the close of the day which foreshadowed 
the doom of the richest city of New Spain and 
which ere another sun set would be a blazing 
funeral pyre and a bloody shambles with the 
shrieks and screams of tortured beings rending the 
air and rising loud above the roaring of the 
flames.” 


[99] 


-> > 
> > > 



> 


CHAPTER VI 


THE SACK OF PANAMA 

“mHERE’S something I’d like to ask, Uncle 
I Henry,” said Fred, as Mr. Bickford 
JL paused in his narrative and reached for 
an old book. ‘ 4 Yon spoke of the British flag flying 
from San Lorenzo. I thought the pirates always 
used a black flag with a skull and bones.” 

“And, Dad, how did they dress?” asked Jack. 
“Did they wear uniforms or did they dress like 
the pictures of pirates, with big earrings and 
handkerchiefs about their heads and their sashes 
stuck full of pistols and knives?” 

“Those are questions well taken,” replied Mr. 
Bickford, “and really important if we are to un¬ 
derstand the truth about the buccaneers and their 
lives. The Molly Roger’ was never the emblem 
of the ‘Brethren of the Main,’ as they called them¬ 
selves, but later, after the buccaneers were dis¬ 
persed and a few had turned out-and-out pirates, 
the black flag with its symbol of death became a 
recognized pirate standard. But in the heydey 

[ 100 ] 


THE SACK OF PANAMA 


of the buccaneers, when they attacked only Span¬ 
ish ships and Spanish cities, they fought under 
the colors of their countries—British, French or 
Dutch, as the case might be, and very often, in 
one fleet, there would be ships under the various 
flags. In addition, each prominent buccaneer 
leader had his own colors—much as merchant 
shipowners have their house flags—which were 
flown on all the ships under the leader. The flag 
might be of almost any conventional design, but 
it was known and recognized by all the buccaneers. 

“Thus, Bartholomew Sharp’s flag was a blood- 
red burgee bearing a bunch of white and green 
ribbons; Sawkins’ colors were a red flag striped 
with yellow; Peter Harris flew a plain green en¬ 
sign; John Coxon used a plain red burgee; Cook 
used a red flag striped with yellow and bearing a 
hand with a sword; Hawkins’ was appropriately 
a red flag with a black hawk upon it and so on. 
In garments, the buccaneers were not by any 
means uniform or particular. The rank and file 
of sailors dressed in rough clothes, as a rule, like 
the ordinary seamen of their times, in loose 
knee trousers or ‘shorts,’ coarse shirts and 
low, heavy shoes on their bare feet and with 
knitted caps or bandannas on their heads. 

[ 101 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

Many wore the costume of the real buccaneers 
of the woods—rawhide shoes and leg cover¬ 
ings, leather jackets and trousers and palm hats, 
while the majority wore any odds and ends they 
could pick up. After a foray they often togged 
themselves out in the garments of their vic¬ 
tims—brocades, silks and satins, gold lace and 
plumed hats, often stiff and caked with the life¬ 
blood of their late owners. But the ordinary buc¬ 
caneer was a spendthrift drunkard ashore and 
any finery he possessed usually went to pay for 
his debaucheries before he had been on land 
twenty-four hours, after which he was left half 
naked. The leaders or captains, however, dressed 
like dandies. To be sure, their wardrobes were 
often made up of miscellaneous pieces looted from 
the wealthy Spaniards, and, like their men, they 
were not over particular as to the condition they 
were in, but they were more or less thrifty, had 
plenty of ready cash and spent small fortunes in 
buying the most brilliant and costly costumes and 
trappings. Here, for example, is a description 
of the costume worn by Morgan. ‘A fine linen 
shirt brave with Italian lace with velvet waistcoat 
of scarlet, much laced with gold and a plum- 
colored greatcoat reaching to his knees and with 

[ 102 ] 


THE SACK OF PANAMA 

great gold buttons fashioned from doubloons and 
trimmed with heavy braid of gold. Upon his legs, 
breeches of saffron silk, belaced like unto his shirt 
and ruffled, and hose of sky-blue silk. Soft top 
boots of red cordovan with huge buckles of silver 
beset with gems and his hat of Sherwood green 
belaced with gold and gemmed, and wherein was 
placed a crimson plume draping onto his shoul¬ 
der. His periwig was lustrous brown and at his 
side he bore a Toledo rapier, jeweled at the hilt, 
on a belt of gray shagreen buckled with gold, and 
bore also a staff, gold headed and tasseledP 
Quite a striking figure, surely, reminding us of 
one of the 1 three musketeers.’ And here is the 
description of another buccaneer chieftain: ‘A 
long surtout of green satin with wide skirts slit 
far up the arms to give his muscles play. 
Breeches wide and short of bullock-blood satin 
and hose of canary silk. ? So you see the pirate 
or buccaneer of fiction is by no means typical of 
the real thing. However, in one respect they were 
all much alike. When on the ‘warpath,’ as we 
may say, they wore all the pistols and daggers 
they could stow in belts or sashes, they invariably 
carried heavy curved cutlasses with peculiar 
scallop shell-shaped hilts and, in addition, they 

[103] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

carried muskets slung over their shoulders with 
horns of powder and pouches of bullets. More¬ 
over, men and officers alike were inordinately fond 
of gewgaws and jewelry, and rings in ears were 
almost universal, as they were with all seamen of 
their time and for years later. 

“And now let us return to Morgan and his men 
encamped on the plain before 4 ye goodlye and 
statlye citie of Panama.’ 

“Early the next day—the tenth after leaving 
San Lorenzo—Morgan marshaled his men upon 
the plain and with drums beating and trumpets 
blaring, marched like a miniature army towards 
the doomed city. It was soon evident that to fol¬ 
low the high road would cost the buccaneers 
dearly, and at his guides’ suggestion Morgan made 
a detour, in order to approach the city through the 
woods. This was totally unexpected by the Span¬ 
iards and in order to check the buccaneers’ ad¬ 
vance the troops were compelled to leave their 
forts and guns and meet the enemy in the open. 
The Spanish numbered four regiments of foot sol¬ 
diers, totaling twenty-four hundred; two squad¬ 
rons of cavalry, amounting to four hundred men, 
and a large number of slaves who were driving a 
herd of two thousand wild bulls which they ex- 

1104] 


THE SACK OF PANAMA 

pected would charge the buccaneers and cause con¬ 
sternation among them. 

“Reaching a low hill, the English looked with 
amazement at the overwhelming forces sent to 
meet them and for the first time their confidence 
began to waver. As Esquemeling puts it, ‘Yea, 
few there were but wished themselves at home or 
at least free from the obligation of that engage¬ 
ment wherein they perceived their lives must be 
narrowly concerned. ’ But they had come too far, 
had undergone too many hardships, and had the 
richest city of the New World too near, to falter 
or turn back and, knowing no quarter would be 
given them, they swore a solemn oath to fight until 
death. 

“Dividing his men into three troops, Morgan 
then ordered the best marksmen, to the number 
of two hundred, to scatter and advance and pick 
off the Spaniards before the main body of buc¬ 
caneers charged. The Dons at once attempted a 
charge of cavalry, but the rains had softened the 
ground and had transformed it to a quagmire; 
they could not maneuver properly and the accu¬ 
rate fire from the buccaneer sharpshooters 
brought them down by scores. Notwithstanding 
this, the Spaniards fought courageously and the 

[ 105 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


infantry tried again and again to force their way 
through the buccaneers in order to support the 
cavalry. Then the bulls were urged forward; with 
cracking whips and shouts from the slaves they 
were stampeded towards the buccaneers, and like 
an avalanche they came plunging on, a sea of 
wildly tossing horns, thundering hoofs and foam¬ 
ing nostrils. But the buccaneers were the last 
men in the world to be demoralized by cattle. 
They had made hunting savage wild bulls their 
profession and with shouts, trumpets and waving 
hats they turned the stampede to one side while 
the few bulls that kept on and dashed among the 
British were shot down or hamstrung ere they did 
the least damage. 

“The battle had now raged for two hours; prac¬ 
tically all the Spanish cavalry were killed or un¬ 
horsed, and the infantry, discouraged and demor¬ 
alized, fired one last volley and then, throwing 
down their muskets, fled to the city. Many were 
not able to gain the town and tried to conceal 
themselves in the woods, but these the buccaneers 
hunted down and butchered wherever found. 

“Upon the field the Dons had left six hundred 
slain, in addition to several hundred wounded, and 
the buccaneers had lost, between killed and 

[ 106 ] 


THE SACK OF PANAMA 


wounded, nearly half as many. Weary with their 
long tramp overland and the battle, the English 
were in no condition to follow up their victory, 
but Morgan forced them on and after a short rest 
they resumed their march towards the city. The 
approach, however, was directly under the fire of 
the cannon in the forts and with the great guns 
roaring constantly and the buccaneers falling at 
every step the English kept doggedly on until, 
after three hours of fighting, they were in pos¬ 
session of the city. 

1 ‘ Madly they rushed hither and thither, ruth¬ 
lessly cutting down and pistoling all they met, 
men, women and children, broaching rum casks, 
looting shops and houses, destroying for mere lust 
and wantonness until, after a great deal of diffi¬ 
culty, Morgan got his men under control and, as¬ 
sembling them in the market place, gave strict 
orders that none should touch or drink any liquor 
owing to the fact, so he said, that he had won a 
confession by torture from prisoners that all the 
wine had been poisoned. In reality, he undoubt¬ 
edly foresaw that, should his men become drunk, 
they would fall easy victims to the Spaniards and 
that the Dons thus might retake the city. 

“Morgan, however, was in a frenzy, an over- 

[ 107 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


powering passion, a demoniacal rage, for the 
people, having been warned of his coming, had 
carried off the bulk of the riches in the city. The 
most precious altar pieces, the wonderful gold 
altar of San Jose church, the chests of coins, the 
bullion and plate, vast fortunes in gems and the 
most valuable merchandise had all been loaded 
hurriedly onto ships which had sailed away, no 
one knew whither, long before the buccaneers ar¬ 
rived. There were to be sure, boats within the 
harbor, but it was low tide—the tide in the Pacific 
rises and falls for nearly twenty feet—the boats 
were high and dry, and Morgan could not even 
send a craft in chase of the fleeing treasure ships. 

“Beside himself with rage, Morgan secretly or¬ 
dered the city fired and in a moment the place 
was a hell of raging flames. Morgan, in order to 
excite his men the more, and to bring greater re¬ 
venge upon the Spaniards, claimed that the Dons 
had started the blaze, but there is no question that 
he was the culprit, for Esquemeling, who was 
present, does not hesitate to make the statement. 
Morgan, however, had overstepped his mark; even 
his men fought valiantly side by side with the 
Spaniards to extinguish the flames, but to no avail. 
In half an hour an entire street was a smoldering 

[ 108 ] 



THE SACK OF PANAMA 

heap of ruins and as most of the city consisted of 
flimsy houses of native cedar and of thatched and 
wattled huts it burned like tinder. And here let 
me point out that the accepted ideas of this old 
city of Panama are very erroneous. Because the 
ruins left standing are of stone, the public, and 
many historians, have assumed that it was a city 
of stone buildings. This, however, was not the 
case. Esquemeling particularly states that, ‘all 
the houses of the city were built of cedar, being 
of curious and magnificent structure and richly 
adorned within, especially with hangings and 
paintings, being two thousand of magnificent and 
prodigious building with five thousand of lesser 
quality. ’ Moreover, in the official description of 
the city, preserved in the Archives of Seville, it 
is stated that the houses were of wood, and they 
were divided into two classes,—those with and 
those without floors, the latter being greatly in 
the majority. Thus it is easily seen how a fire 
would sweep the city and wipe it out of existence 
in a few hours, leaving only the solidly built stone 
buildings remaining. Of these there were a num¬ 
ber, including eight monasteries, two churches 
and a hospital, the cathedral, the slave market, 
the governor’s palace, the treasury and the forts. 

[ 109 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

One of the finest buildings was the slave exchange 
owned by Genoese slave merchants, and within 
this, when the town fell to the buccaneers, were 
over two hundred, cowering, helpless slaves. 
Guarding the doors that none might escape, Mor¬ 
gan ordered the place burnt and for hours the 
screams and shrieks of the manacled, helpless 
blacks and Indians drowned all other sounds as 
the poor creatures were slowly roasted to death. 

“For four weeks the city burned, while the buc¬ 
caneers camped within the charred ruins, but tak¬ 
ing great care not to become separated, as they 
well knew that large numbers of the Spaniards 
were lurking near, fully armed and ready to take 
advantage of the least carelessness on the part of 
the invaders. 

“In the meantime, the buccaneers searched the 
ruins for loot, explored the wells and cisterns and 
recovered large amounts of hidden treasure and 
valuables which had survived the flames. Mean¬ 
while, too, Morgan sent out five hundred heavily 
armed men to scour the surrounding country and 
bring in all prisoners and valuables they could 
find, and two days later they returned, bringing 
over two hundred captives. Each day new parties 
were sent out and constantly they returned bear- 

[ 110 ] 


THE SACK OF PANAMA 


ing more loot and additional captives until the 
countryside for miles about was a desolate un¬ 
inhabited waste. 

‘‘Then, to wring confessions of where the miser¬ 
able folk had secreted their valuables, Morgan 
commenced such a series of devilish tortures and 
inhumanities as the world had probably never 
seen before or since. One poor wretch who was a 
mere serving man was captured while wearing a 
pair of his master’s ‘taffety breeches’ which he 
had donned in the confusion of the attack. More¬ 
over, hanging to the trousers was a small key, 
and these things convinced the buccaneers that 
the fellow was well-to-do and that the key be¬ 
longed to some secret chest containing his wealth. 
In vain the fellow protested that he knew noth¬ 
ing of it, that the garments and the key were 
his master’s and that he was merely a servant. 
Paying no heed to his screams, the buccaneers 
placed him on the rack and stretched him until his 
arms were pulled from their sockets. Still the 
man protested his ignorance and the inhuman 
monsters twisted a thong about his forehead until 
his eyes popped from their orbits. Even this 
awful torture was, of course, without result, and 
stringing him up by the thumbs, they flogged him 

[ 111 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


within an inch of his life, sliced off his ears and 
nose, singed his bleeding sightless features with 
burning straw and, still unsuccessful in their at¬ 
tempts to learn the supposed secret of his treas¬ 
ure, they ordered a slave to run him through with 
a lance. There is no need to describe other 
examples of Morgan’s fiendishness. He spared 
neither young nor old, men or women, and the 
priests and nuns were treated with even greater 
cruelty than any others. Only the most prominent 
and important men and women were free from 
tortures, and these Morgan herded together to 
hold, under threat of death or worse, for ransom. 

“For three weeks the buccaneers occupied the 
ruined city, torturing, slaying, committing every 
devilishness imaginable, until even Morgan’s men 
sickened with the sights and a large portion of 
them planned to steal away in a ship and desert 
their leader. Morgan, however, heard of the plot, 
destroyed all the ships and ordered preparations 
made to leave the city and return to San Lorenzo. 
But before he left he sent certain prisoners to out¬ 
lying districts demanding ransoms for those he 
held, and for days wealth flowed in from friends 
of the captives and many were freed. Still, hun¬ 
dreds remained, and on the 14th of February, 

[ 112 ] 


THE SACK OF PANAMA 

1671, Morgan and his men left the city, and, with 
one hundred and seventy-two pack mules laden 
with booty and six hundred prisoners, he started 
on the long and terrible overland trip. 

“ Never did heaven look down upon a more 
pitiable, awful spectacle than that presented by 
the buccaneers with their captives. Surrounded 
by the armed buccaneers, the prisoners—many of 
them tender, high-bred ladies and young children 
—were forced over the rough trail and across 
rivers. ‘Nothing,’ says Esquemeling, ‘was to be 
heard save the lamentations, cries, shrieks and 
doleful sighs of those who were persuaded that 
Morgan designed to transport them to his own 
country as slaves.’ Given barely enough food and 
water to sustain life, many of them wounded, all 
terrified and frightened, they were forced on by 
blows, curses, prods with swords or rawhide 
lashes. Women, unable to endure, fell upon their 
knees and implored Morgan to permit them to go 
back to their loved ones to live in huts of straw 
as they had no houses left, but to one and all he 
replied, with a laugh, that he came not to hear 
lamentations .and cries but to gain money. Often, 
the women and children would stagger and fall, 
and if unable to rise were pistoled or run 

[113] 


THE BOYS* BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

through, the others staggering over their dead 
bodies. And yet, in the midst of this awful march, 
Morgan exhibited that strange paradoxical na¬ 
ture of his and performed a gallant and com¬ 
mendable act. It happened that among the pris¬ 
oners was a lady who belonged on the island of 
Taboga, a most lovely and virtuous woman ac¬ 
cording to Esquemeling, and to her buccaneer 
guards she stated, amid her sobs and shrieks, that 
she had sent two priests to secure her ransom, but 
that having obtained the money they had used it 
to secure the release of their own friends. This 
tale reached Morgan’s ears and instantly he 
halted his men, made an investigation and finding 
it true at once released the woman, made her a 
present of the amount of her ransom, swept off 
his plumed hat, bent his knee and kissed her 
finger-tips and, with expressions of deepest sor¬ 
row for her state, sent her happily on her way 
with an armed escort. Then, to even scores, he 
made prisoners of the treacherous priests, and, as 
Esquemeling tells us, ‘used them according to the 
deserts of their incompassionate intrigues.’ 

“By the time La Cruz was reached on March 
5, 1671, the bulk of the captives who still lived 
had been ransomed, and, embarking with those 

[114] 


THE SACK OF PANAMA 


remaining and with a number of new prisoners 
taken at La Cruz, Morgan and his men started 
down the Chagres. 

“When midway to San Lorenzo, Morgan again 
halted, ordered every one searched to be sure they 
had concealed no booty and, to show his fairness, 
insisted that he too must be searched, ‘even to 
the soles of his boots . 9 Then once more they re¬ 
sumed their way, and on March 9th reached the 
mouth of the Chagres and the fortress. 

“Soon after he arrived, Morgan loaded a boat 
with the prisoners he had taken at St. Catherine 
and sent them to Porto Bello with a demand that 
a ransom should be paid for the evacuation of 
San Lorenzo without its being destroyed. This 
time, however, Morgan’s bluff was called, and a 
message was returned stating that not a farthing 
would be paid and Morgan could do as he pleased 
with the castle. 

“Meantime, the loot was divided—Morgan do¬ 
ing the dividing—and at once grumblings and 
complaints arose and the men openly accused 
Morgan of keeping far more than his agreed 
share. And there is little wonder that they did, 
for, despite the immense booty taken, Morgan 
gave but two hundred pieces of eight to each man! 

[115] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

“Then Morgan showed his yellow streak and, 
sneaking secretly aboard his ship, while at his 
orders his men were demolishing the fort, he 
sailed away, leaving the buccaneers to follow as 
best they might. With scarcely any provisions, 
with no commander of experience, the deserted 
buccaneers were in a sad state. As Esquemeling 
quaintly says, ‘ Morgan left us all in such a miser¬ 
able condition as might well serve for a lively 
representation of what reward attends wicked¬ 
ness at the latter end of life.’ As a matter of 
fact, they separated, took to sea in the remaining 
ships and scattered to the four winds, carrying on 
a desultory and more or less successful buccaneer¬ 
ing life on their own account. Thus, by treach¬ 
ery, Morgan possessed himself of his men’s hard- 
won loot, he double-crossed and deserted the men 
who, rough and villainous as they were, had stood 
by him through thick and thin and had made his 
most famous deed possible, and his career as a 
buccaneer was over. 

“But the monuments to his awful deeds remain. 
Above the placid Chagres’ mouth old Fort San 
Lorenzo still frowns down. Its quaint sentry 
boxes jut from the battered walls; the great guns 
lie rusting and corroded in the crumbling em- 

[ 116 ] 



The buccaneers’ fleet 






The ruined tower of the cathedral in Old Panama 



Near the cathedral are the walls of the ancient fort 







THE SACK OF PANAMA 


brasures; piles of round shot are overgrown with 
weeds and vines; the cisterns where the Dons 
dipped the water to quench the flames caused by 
that blazing arrow are still there. Within the 
dungeons are rusty leg irons, manacles and heavy 
chains; the patched walls, where Morgan’s toiling 
prisoners repaired the breaches of his buccaneers’ 
attack, are plainly visible; and the deep trench, 
half filled with the piles of dirt whereon the gal¬ 
lant Governor made his last stand, are there for 
all to see. 

“And across the Isthmus—by the shores of the 
Pacific—looms the lonely, ruined tower of the 
cathedral in Old Panama. Near it are the walls 
of the ancient fort, the gaunt arches of a burned 
monastery, the solid massive walls of the slave 
mart wherein those cowering wretches were 
roasted at Morgan’s orders and, spanning a little 
stream, is the stone bridge over which the buc¬ 
caneers fought and fell as they took the city. 
Half hidden in the jungle are the treasure vaults 
that once held incalculable fortunes in plate and 
gold, in ingots and jewels, in pieces of eight, onzas 
and doubloons. Among the shrubbery one may 
still pick up bits of glass and china, hinges and 
locks, buttons and stray coins, even an occasional 

[117] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 



pistol barrel or sword hilt, all warped, misshapen, 
melted by the flames that wiped Old Panama from 
the map when Morgan, in his rage, fired the rich¬ 
est city of New Spain and left death and destruc¬ 
tion, smoldering ruins and distorted bleeding 
corpses to testify to the most wanton, ruthless 
deed ever perpetrated by a buccaneer.” 



[ 118 ] 


CHAPTER VII 


THE MISFORTUNES OF MONSIEUR OGERON 

“ OSH, Pm glad the Spaniards fooled 

I Morgan and got most of their things 

V , ^1 away!’’ exclaimed Jack. ‘‘What be¬ 
came of the treasure, Dad; did they bring it back 
after Morgan left?” 

“No one knows what became of the bulk of it,” 
replied his father. “One or two of the ships were 
never heard from. They were probably wrecked 
or perhaps their crews mutinied and made off 
with the valuables. One vessel was driven ashore 
on the coasts of Darien and the treasure went 
down with it. The priceless cargoes of others 
were buried in out-of-the-way spots and no one 
has ever discovered them as far as known, while a 
few of the ships returned after the buccaneers 
had gone. Of course the town was in ruins and, 
realizing that the situation was too exposed, the 
Dons moved a few miles to the west and built the 
present city of Panama, using the stones and 
bricks from the ruins in making the more impor- 

[119] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

tant buildings. And here let me tell you a little 
story—a most romantic and fascinating tale that 
throws some light on the question of what became 
of the treasures the Spaniards saved from Mor¬ 
gan’s clutches. 

“In the old city the richest and most famed 
church was that of San Jose. Like all the 
churches, it received its tithe or share of all gold 
and riches passing through Panama, but the 
brothers who owned San Jose saw fit to use their 
share to fashion a huge altar of beaten gold, a 
marvelous, glorious structure unequalled in all 
the world and which became famed far and wide. 
Indeed it is said that it was mainly the stories 
of the golden altar of San Jose and the heavily 
jeweled vestments and images in the church that 
led Morgan to sack the town. When word of the 
taking of San Lorenzo reached Panama, the 
priests of San Jose church hurriedly removed the 
far-famed altar piecemeal and loading it onto a 
ship sailed away. Months later, when the new city 
was being built, the priests returned and busied 
themselves in building a new San Jose church near 
the harbor shores in the new city. But they were 
evidently no longer rich. The church was a tiny, 
obscure, unattractive affair half hidden among 

[ 120 ] 


MISFORTUNES OF MONSIEUR OGERON 

other buildings, as it still stands to-day, at the 
corner of Avenue A and 8th Street in Panama 
City. And within the church, in place of the 
wonderful altar of beaten gold, they erected a 
plain white altar—the poorest of all among the 
churches in the city. Time went on. There were 
slave uprisings, fires, rebellions against Spain and 
insurrections. The country was turbulent and 
unsettled, but the brothers of San Jose church had 
nothing to tempt robbers, bandits or revolution¬ 
ists and they and their little stucco church were 
left in peace. Even the fires that swept the town 
and destroyed many of the larger churches spared 
the little affair on Avenue A. Then came the 
Americans and the Canal; Panama won her inde- 
pendence, Uncle Sam sanitized the city, estab¬ 
lished law and order, and bloody, unsettled days 
were a thing of the past. 

“Then for days the priests of San Jose church 
busied themselves with mysterious doings behind 
closed doors and at last, lo and behold, where the 
white altar had stood, once more gleamed the an¬ 
cient altar of gold! Through all the years the 
friars had guarded their secret well. Under its 
coating of white paint the famed altar had been 
hidden with never a suspicion of its existence and 

[ 121 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

now that it was safe the white paint had been 
cleaned off and once more the glorious altar of 
precious metal glowed and scintillated in the sun¬ 
light pouring upon it through the stained glass 
windows. It is one of the sights of Panama of 
to-day, but few know of its existence, still fewer 
know of its history and in the little church on a 
back street few tourists realize that there stands 
the most wonderful and the only real treasure 
salvaged from the ancient city destroyed by the 
buccaneers. 

“And now, boys, let us go back to Morgan and 
follow his career after he returned to Jamaica 
from the looting of Panama. While he had been 
away, peace between Spain and England had been 
declared, and the King of England, hearing that 
Jamaica’s Governor encouraged the buccaneers 
and even shared in their raids, appointed a new 
governor and ordered the old one to appear be¬ 
fore the Crown and explain his behavior. Thus, 
when Morgan arrived at Jamaica, he found him¬ 
self declared a pirate and placed under arrest 
along with the ex-governor. And with his dis¬ 
credited official friend the buccaneer chieftain was 
transported to England to stand trial for piracy. 

“No one knows exactly what arguments Mor- 

[ 122 ] 


MISFORTUNES OF MONSIEUR OGERON 

gan used or how he managed it; but he was a glib 
talker, a man of great personal magnetism and, 
moreover, had vast riches .at his disposal, and 
doubtless he employed all these resources to the 
best of his ability. At any rate, instead of being 
hung as he richly deserved, he was knighted by 
the king, was appointed Lieutenant Governor of 
Jamaica and sent back to the island with instruc¬ 
tions to suppress piracy. Maybe the King had 
method in his madness and thought that if it 
took a thief to catch a thief it would be well to 
have a pirate to catch pirates. And in this he was 
not mistaken. Morgan, having already won the 
enmity of his former comrades and being dis¬ 
credited as a buccaneer, turned upon the corsairs, 
and with all the cruelty and unscrupulousness he 
had exhibited when attacking the Dons, he hunted 
down the buccaneers, hanged them without trial 
and sent expeditions out to destroy them. But he 
was such an utterly unprincipled and dastardly 
wretch that he could not play fair even as a re¬ 
formed buccaneer. While destroying buccaneers 
with one hand he was aiding them with the other 
and secretly was providing funds and help for his 
brother and a few chosen friends in their piratical 
ventures. Owing to rumors of this and complaints 

[ 123 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

of his tyrannical rule, the King at last recalled 
him and Morgan, sailing from Jamaica, passed 
into oblivion. Very little is known of what be¬ 
came of him. Some claim he settled down in 
England and lived quietly upon the proceeds of 
his robberies; others say he settled in the West 
Indies, and there is even a rumor that he was 
assassinated by one of his old shipmates. What¬ 
ever his end, he died unknown, unhonored, hated 
for a traitor, a most atrocious scallawag; after a 
meteoric career of but five years and the only 
buccaneer who was ever made a ‘Sir.’ 

“Now for a change, let me tell you of a buc¬ 
caneer who found the Spaniards more than a 
match for him and met his Waterloo at the hands 
of the Dons. This was no less a personage than 
the Governor of Tortuga, Monsieur Bertram 
Ogeron. After Morgan’s raid on Panama, in 
1673 to be exact, war broke out between the 
French and Dutch, and this gave an excuse to the 
French buccaneers of Tortuga to attack their for¬ 
mer friends of the Dutch West Indies. Governor 
Ogeron, who was quite a famed buccaneer, built 
and fitted out a large armed vessel which he named 
the Ogeron in honor of himself and, manning it 
with five hundred buccaneers, prepared to swoop 

[124] 


MISFORTUNES OF MONSIEUR OGERON 


down on the island of Curacao. But when near¬ 
ing Porto Rico and sailing through the Mona 
Passage between that island and Santo Domingo, 
a violent storm drove his ship upon the Guada- 
nillas rocks, completely destroying it. Fortu¬ 
nately, or perhaps unfortunately as it turned out, 
all the men escaped in boats to the main island of 
Porto Rico. Almost at once they were discovered 
by the Spaniards who recognized them as French 
buccaneers, and the castaways being unarmed and 
helpless they were immediately made prisoners. 
Although the French begged for mercy and quar¬ 
ter, the atrocities they had committed in the past 
were still fresh in their captors’ minds and, find¬ 
ing buccaneers at their mercy, they proceeded to 
wreak vengeance. In a short time they had tor¬ 
tured and killed the majority of the captives and 
then, securely binding those left alive, they started 
to drive them across the island to San Juan as 
slaves. Throughout all this, Ogeron had remained 
unknown to the Dons, pretending to be a half¬ 
witted fool, and his men, to all the Dons’ queries, 
insisted that their commander had been drowned. 
Thinking him a poor demented fellow the Span¬ 
iards left him free and obtained no little amuse¬ 
ment from his crazy capers and insane behavior. 

[ 125 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

Indeed, they found him so diverting that they 
treated him with kindness, fed him from their 
own meals, while the other buccaneers were given 
barely enough to sustain life, and allowed him full 
liberty. Also among the buccaneers was another 
favored man, a surgeon, who was also left free 
in order that he might use his services for the 
Dons’ benefit, and the two at once plotted to escape 
and, returning to Tortuga, bring an expedition to 
Porto Rico to rescue their fellows. Watching 
their chance, they took to the woods and made 
towards the coast. This they reached safely, but 
found themselves almost as badly off as before, 
for there was not a scrap of food to eat and no 
chance of getting shelter or making their way 
to Tortuga. But they were resourceful men and, 
wandering along the shore, they succeeded in cap¬ 
turing a number of fish in the shoal water. Then, 
by rubbing sticks together, they obtained fire, 
roasted the fish and the next day proceeded to cut 
down trees with the intention of making a raft. 
Fortunately they had brought along a small 
hatchet, their only tool and weapon, and with this 
they undertook their herculean job. They were 
thus busily at work when, to their delight, they 
saw a canoe approaching and, hiding in the bushes, 

[ 126 ] 


MISFORTUNES OF MONSIEUR OGERON 

they watched it as it drew towards the beach and 
discovered that it contained two men,—poor fish¬ 
ermen,—a Spaniard and a mulatto. Picking up 
several calabashes, the mulatto stepped from the 
little craft and started up the beach, evidently in¬ 
tent on securing water. Stealing stealthily after 
him the buccaneers, to quote Esquemeling’s 
words, ‘ assaulted him and, discharging a great 
blow on his head with the hatchet, they soon de¬ 
prived him of life. ’ Hearing his cries, the Span¬ 
iard started to escape, but was quickly overtaken 
and butchered. Then, securing a plentiful supply 
of water in the dead man’s calabashes, they set 
sail and a few days later arrived safely at a buc¬ 
caneers’ lair in Samana Bay, Santo Domingo. 

“Here Ogeron told his story, gathered together 
all the buccaneers he could find and with a num¬ 
ber of ships and several hundred men started on 
his voyage of rescue and vengeance. The Dons, 
however, saw his fleet approaching and prepared 
to give the buccaneers a warm welcome. Unsus¬ 
pecting, the buccaneers fell into an ambuscade, 
great numbers were killed and the survivors who 
did not manage to escape to their ships, were made 
prisoners. Ogeron himself escaped and shamed 
and beaten returned to Tortuga, abandoning all 

[ 127 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

hopes of rescuing his unfortunate comrades. In 
the meantime, the Dons slaughtered the wounded 
Frenchmen, cut off a few heads and limbs of the 
corpses to prove to their first prisoners the fate 
of their friends who had attempted their rescue, 
and drove the poor fellows on towards the capi¬ 
tal. Here in San Juan they were put to work at 
building the massive fortress of San Cristobal 
while a few were transported to Havana as 
laborers on the fortifications there. But the Dons 
took no chances with them. Although but a hand¬ 
ful of half-starved, shackled slaves yet the buc¬ 
caneers’ reputation was such that the Spaniards 
kept them constantly under guard, confining them 
in separate cells at night, for, to once more quote 
Esquemeling’s quaint phraseology, ‘the Span¬ 
iards had had divers proofs of their enterprises on 
other occasions which afforded them sufficient 
cause to use them after this manner.’ 

“And to make assurance doubly sure, each time 
a ship sailed for Spain parties of the prisoners 
were placed on board, transported to Europe and 
set at liberty. The buccaneers, however, had an 
almost uncanny faculty of getting together, even 
when widely separated, and ere long all the pris¬ 
oners had met in France and were soon back in 

[ 128 ] 


MISFORTUNES OF MONSIEUR OGERON 


their old haunt at Tortuga ready for another 
foray. But they had had enough of Ogeron as 
a leader and joining Le Sieur Maintenon sailed 
for Trinidad which they sacked and ransomed for 
ten thousand pieces of eight and then set forth 
for the conquest of Caracas. Here, once more, 
they met defeat, for while they took the port of 
La Guaira they were ignominiously beaten back on 
the awful trail over the mountains to Caracas. 
Many were killed, more were made prisoners and 
only a handful of survivors escaped and returned, 
broken and penniless, to Tortuga.” 

“Well, I’m glad the Dons did beat them,” de¬ 
clared Fred. “Seems to me the buccaneers had 
it their own way too often.” 

“Yes, that is true,” assented Mr. Bickford, 
“but you must bear in mind that only the suc¬ 
cesses of the buccaneers were recorded as a gen¬ 
eral thing. No doubt they were defeated repeat¬ 
edly and nothing said of the matter, and if the 
Spaniards’ story were told it might read very 
differently. Now that I have told you of Morgan, 
of the ruthless buccaneers, such as Portugues, 
L’Ollonois and their kind, let me tell you of the 
most remarkable expedition ever undertaken by 
the buccaneers; a trip without a parallel in his- 

[ 129 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


tory and which, for sheer daredevil bravery, in¬ 
domitable courage, splendid seamanship and won¬ 
derful adventures is worthy of a place in the his¬ 
tory of the greatest navigators and discoverers of 
the world. Moreover, this ‘most dangerous voy¬ 
age,’ as the buccaneer historian calls it, was of 
real value to the world, as it resulted in scientific 
discoveries and data, in geographical knowledge 
and facts about the Indians which otherwise might 
never have been recorded.” 

“It seems funny to think of buccaneers being 
interested in science or geography or such 
things,” said Jack, as his father searched through 
a volume for the chapter he desired. “How did it 
happen, Dad!” 

“One of the members of the expedition was a 
man named Dampier,” replied his father. “He 
was the son of an English farmer and at seven¬ 
teen was apprenticed as a boy aboard a merchant 
ship sailing to the West Indies. Deserting the 
ship, he tried his fortunes as a logwood cutter, but 
finding this held little chance for either riches or 
excitement, he joined the buccaneers. But 
Dampier was at heart a naturalist and an au¬ 
thor. He was fond of study, was a keen observer 
and wherever he went he invariably wrote notes 

[ 130 ] 


MISFORTUNES OF MONSIEUR OGERON 


recording all he had seen and made excellent maps 
and sketches. One would hardly expect the career 
of a buccaneer to favor literary work and yet 
Dampier managed to write an excellent book while 
on a buccaneer ship. Often he would be obliged 
to drop pen and paper in the middle of a chapter 
in order to help his comrades battle with a Span¬ 
ish ship or take a town, but he kept it up with 
fanatical persistence, carried his manuscript and 
his writing materials with him wherever he went 
and left most valuable records. What a queer 
picture he must have presented as he sat on a 
gun carriage busily jotting down notes on natural 
history or making sketches of the rugged wooded 
shores of some buccaneers ’ lair, which he always 
speaks of as ‘a particular draught of my own 
composure/ while, beside his ink horn, was his 
loaded pistol and his trusty cutlass ready for any 
emergency. His copy he kept in a joint of bamboo, 
which, he says, ‘I stopt at both ends, closing it 
with Wax so as to keep out any water. In this 
way I preserved my Journal and other writings 
from being wet, tho’ I was often forced to swim.’ 

“And along with the author-naturalist, Dam- 
pier, was many another odd character. There 
was Foster, who spent his hours between battles 

[ 131 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

composing sentimental poetry and who wrote 
‘Soneyettes of Love’ aboard a buccaneer ship’; 
Richard Jobson, a divinity student and chemist, 
who carried along with his sword and pistols a 
well-thumbed Greek Testament which he trans¬ 
lated aloud for the edification of his piratical 
mates, and, lastly, Ringrose, the pilot and navi¬ 
gator, whose carefully kept log has given us the 
true history of this ‘most dangerous voyage and 
bold assaults of Captain Bartholomew Sharp.’ ” 


[ 132 ] 


CHAPTER VIII 


A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING 

'ONG the buccaneers who ravished the 



Caribbean and the Spanish Main, but 


who had not joined Morgan in his en¬ 


deavors, were Captain Bartholomew Sharp, Peter 
Harris, Richard Sawkins, Captain Cook, Alleston, 
Row and Macket. As a whole, they were far su¬ 
perior men to Morgan and his kind, although no 
less daring, and in March, 1680, these various buc¬ 
caneer leaders chanced to meet at a favorite lair 
of the corsairs, Bocas del Toro, on the Atlantic 
coast of what is now Panama. Deploring the lack 
of rich cities to sack and the difficulty of taking 
the Spanish galleons, now guarded by armed con¬ 
voys, and cursing the fate that had decreed peace 
between Spain and England, the disgruntled buc¬ 
caneer captains sought for new fields for their 
activities. 

“Morgan’s raid on Panama had proved that 
there were rich pickings on the Pacific, but the re¬ 
lentless persecution of the buccaneers by the Brit- 


[ 133 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

ish authorities in the Caribbean made life uncom¬ 
fortable for them, and after a deal of discussion it 
was agreed that the Pacific coasts held the best 
promise of fortunes to be won. But to talk of 
raiding the Dons’ towns and seizing their ships 
on the Pacific was one thing and to do it was quite 
a different matter. To sail around the Horn was 
a long and tedious voyage beset with greatest 
dangers and to cross by the Gold Road or the 
Chagres, while possible, was not only perilous, 
but would be but repeating Morgan’s raid. Then, 
into their presence, came one Bournano, a French 
buccaneer, who reported that while peace had 
been established between the savage Indians of 
Darien and the Spaniards, yet the Indians were 
still friendly to the buccaneers and hated the 
Dons. Indeed, Bournano stated further that the 
Indians had promised to lead him and his men 
to a rich town called Tocamora and that he had 
agreed to return to raid the place as soon as he 
could secure more ships and men. 

“This exactly suited the assembled buccaneers; 
it was unanimously agreed to join fortunes with 
the Frenchman, and, supplying their ships with 
sea turtles and maize, the captains set sail for 
Darien. The fleet consisted of nine vessels with 

[ 134 ] 


A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING 

four hundred and seventy-seven men and without 
adventure they arrived at the San Bias Islands. 
Here the Indians welcomed them, for the San Bias 
tribe had, from time immemorial, been allies of the 
corsairs, but when they learned of the buccaneers’ 
purpose they frowned upon it. Tocamora, they 
said, was in a mountainous country; the way was 
long and rough, it was in an uninhabited district 
where food was scarce, and the place was not as 
rich as had been reported. Instead, the Indians 
suggested that the buccaneers should cross the 
Isthmus, take the outlying city of El Real de 
Santa Maria, which was the depot for all the gold 
from the incredibly rich mines of Darien, and 
then proceed to attack the new city of Panama. 
It was a wild, harebrained, daring and almost 
hopeless scheme, but it appealed to the buccaneers 
and, aside from Captain Row and Bournano, all 
agreed to follow the Indians’ advice. 

“On April 5, 1680, the buccaneers landed on the 
mainland three hundred and thirty-one strong, 
and, leaving a few men and Captains Alleston and 
Macket to guard the ships, the dauntless buc¬ 
caneers started on their terrible march, carrying 
for provisions but three cakes of cassava each and 
all heavily armed. 


[ 135 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

Following their Indian guides, the buccaneers 
divided into six companies and entered the jungle. 
The very first day their hardships began. So im¬ 
penetrable was the forest that it was necessary to 
hew a way every yard, there were rivers to cross, 
swamps to wade through, and clouds of mosquitoes 
made life miserable. The first day four men gave 
up and returned to the coast, but the others, of 
whom, as I have said, Dampier was a member, 
kept doggedly on. Through pouring rain, climb¬ 
ing precipitous mountains, swimming rivers, the 
buccaneers proceeded on their way and at the 
close of the second day had covered nearly eight¬ 
een miles. Often, as Ringrose tells us, they were 
obliged to cross the same river over and over again, 
but at noon of the third day they came to a village 
of the wild Kuna Indians. Ringrose and Dampier 
describe the Indians very well, speaking particu¬ 
larly of the painted wooden crowns, the red caps 
and the gold nose rings worn by the chiefs, 
exactly as they are to-day. The Indians were 
friendly, they supplied the buccaneers fruit and 
provisions, and the footsore corsairs spent the day 
resting in the Indians ’ huts. On the tenth of April 
a river large enough to be navigable by canoes 
was reached, and Captains Sharp, Coxon, Cook 

[ 136 ] 


A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING 

and Ringrose, with seventy men, embarked in 
fourteen dugouts. But they soon found that glid¬ 
ing down the Chukunaque River was by no means 
a relief from the overland tramp. Fallen trees 
and bars tilled the stream; at every few yards the 
buccaneers were compelled to haul their craft bod¬ 
ily over the obstructions, and, being separated 
from their comrades, they began to fear the In¬ 
dians intended to cut them off and betray them 
to the Spaniards. On April 13th they reached 
the junction of the Tuira and Chukunaque Rivers, 
and in the afternoon of the same day they were 
overjoyed to see their missing companions who 
had come through the jungle in safety. Through¬ 
out this awful trip, Dampier had preserved his 
writings in his ‘joyente of bamboo,’ carefully jot¬ 
ting down, despite all difficulties, his observations 
of bird and animal life, notes on plants and de¬ 
scriptions of the Indians and their lives. But the 
difficulties of the crossing were practically over. 
In sixty-eight canoes the three hundred and 
twenty-seven men embarked with fifty Indians 
and swept swiftly down stream towards unsus¬ 
pecting El Real. Camping a scant half mile above 
the town, the buccaneers prepared to attack at 
dawn and were awakened by the drums of the 

[ 137 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

garrison. Priming their pistols and muskets, the 
buccaneers marched on the village, which was sur¬ 
rounded by a twelve-foot palisade, but the corsairs 
made short work of this and took the town with 
a loss of but two men wounded. Within were two 
hundred and sixty men, but the buccaneers soon 
learned, to their chagrin, why no resistance had 
been made. The gold, brought from the mines, 
and, which they had hoped to gain, had been taken 
the day before to Panama—a treasure of three 
hundred pounds of bullion—and there was utterly 
nothing worth taking in the place, which was a 
mere outpost of straw and palm-thatched huts. 
Unlike Morgan and his fellows, Sharp and his men 
treated the Dons humanely and even prevented 
their Indian allies from butchering the captives, 
a diversion they had started the moment they had 
entered the place. Disappointed at their ill luck, 
the buccaneers were more than ever determined 
to attack Panama, and, choosing Captain Coxon 
as commander, the buccaneers, deserted by all but 
three Indians, prepared for the most hazardous 
venture ever attempted. Cut off, as they were, 
from retreat by the long journey through the 
jungle, in a hostile country, without provisions or 
ships, yet these fearless, indomitable men were 

[138] 


A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING 

about to hurl themselves upon the most strongly 
fortified town on the Pacific, and attack a city of 
thousands with less than three hundred and 
twenty men, for twelve of their number had left 
and had gone back with the Indians after taking 
El Real. 

‘ ‘ On April 17, 1680, the buccaneers embarked in 
thirty-six canoes and slipping down river with the 
ebb tide entered the great Gulf of San Miguel. 
Soon the party became separated, and Ringrose’s 
canoe was wrecked. Without food or clothing 
other than the few rags on their bodies and with 
no shoes on their feet, the buccaneers set forth 
afoot. By good fortune they met Indians, secured 
canoes, and, sending their prisoners back free, 
they continued on their way. The very next night, 
seeing fires on shore, the weary fellows thought 
they had found their missing comrades and hastily 
landed, only to fall into the hands of a party of 
Spaniards. But here the humane actions of the 
buccaneers were rewarded. The Dons, learning 
who their captives were, and hearing from a pris¬ 
oner how the British had saved them from mas¬ 
sacre by the Indians, fed and clothed the buc¬ 
caneers and gave them their liberty. 

‘ ‘ The next morning, to every one’s unspeakable 

[139] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

delight, the other parties were met. Several small 
sailboats were also captured, and now, once more 
well equipped and confident, the entire party gath¬ 
ered at Chepillo Island and prepared for their 
descent on Panama, about thirty miles distant. 
And here, too, the buccaneers suddenly, for 
‘reasons which I can not dive into,’ as Ringrose 
puts it, threw aside their former humanity and 
ordered the Indians to butcher the few remaining 
Spanish prisoners. Luckily, the captives man¬ 
aged to escape, however, and only one was killed. 
Rowing stealthily along the shores under cover of 
the night, and drenched by torrential rains, the 
buccaneers came at dawn within sight of the city 
to find two great ships and three smaller men-of- 
war anchored in the bay and ready to resist 
the buccaneers. Here were unexpected troubles. 
They had counted on taking the place by surprise, 
on being led into the city by a captive whose life 
they had saved, and, instead, their presence was 
known and five powerful armed ships swarming 
with Spaniards were prepared for them. And, to 
make matters worse, a large part of their men 
were absent. During the night and the storm 
they had become separated, the largest of the 
boats, in command of Captain Sharp, had put 

[ 140 ] 



Dampier wrote his journal during 


LULLS BETWEEN BATTLES 






Piraguas. It was in boats like these that the earlier buccaneers captured their first 

Spanish spiips 






A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING 

into outlying islands for water, and the heavier 
piraguas were far astern of the lighter canoes. 
These, five in number and with one piragua, con¬ 
tained but sixty-eight out of the three hundred 
odd buccaneers, and these were weary with their 
long row and in no condition to fight. But there 
was no time for indecision. The three Spanish 
war vessels were already bearing down upon the 
buccaneers, and although so near that Ringrose 
says they feared they would be run down, yet the 
English fell to their oars and, pulling desperately 
into the wind, evaded the Dons’ ships and got to 
windward. Realizing that the sooner they struck 
the better, the buccaneers turned their boats and, 
pulling directly towards the huge Spanish ships, 
picked off the helmsmen and the gunners with 
their muskets. With their vessels aback, unable 
to maneuver, the Dons were, for the moment, help¬ 
less, and while their broadsides threw round shot 
and chain shot among the buccaneers and killed 
a number, the light swift boats were hard targets 
to hit, and before a second broadside could be fired 
they were under the vessels’ side where the can¬ 
nons could not reach them. Then the battle raged 
thick and fast. Picking off the Dons whenever 
they showed their heads above the bulwarks, cut- 

[ 141 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


ting sheets and braces with their shots, the buc¬ 
caneers forced their tiny craft under the war¬ 
ships’ sterns, jammed the rudders, and, sinking 
their own craft to make sure the men must do 
or die, they swarmed up ropes, chains and quarter 
galleries onto the Spaniards’ decks. 

“Ringrose and his party attacked the Admiral’s 
ship, and leaping over the bulwarks cut down the 
Admiral, swept like demons among the Spanish 
crew, cutting, slashing, shooting and converting 
the decks to a bloody shambles. Not until two- 
thirds of the crew were killed did the Dons sur¬ 
render, however. With the flagship in their hands, 
Captain Coxon took charge and at once sent two 
canoes of buccaneers to aid Sawkins, who had 
thrice been beat back from the decks of the other 
warship. Hardly had the reenforcements arrived 
when two explosions took place on the ship and 
in the confusion the buccaneers swarmed onto the 
ship’s deck and took the vessel without resistance, 
for not one Spaniard was left alive and uninjured 
aboard! But on every ship the slaughter was 
terrific. Of the original crew of eighty-six on the 
flagship, only twenty-five men remained alive and 
only eight of these were able to stand. Indeed, 
even Ringrose and his fellows, hardened to slaugh- 

[ 142 ] 


A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING 

ter and bloodshed as they were, were amazed at 
the butchery they had wrought, and, in their jour¬ 
nals, Ringrose and Dampier state that ‘ blood ran 
down the decks in whole streams and not one place 
upon the ships was found that was free of blood.’ 
And yet this victory, this awful carnage, had been 
carried out by sixty-eight buccaneers in frail 
canoes and small boats, truly a most marvelous 
feat of daring and bravery, and, more remarkable 
yet, the buccaneers ’ losses amounted to but eight¬ 
een killed and twenty-two wounded! 

“With the two men-of-war in their possession 
the buccaneers at once sailed for the big galleons, 
but, to their surprise, found them absolutely de¬ 
serted, every member of their crews having been 
placed aboard the warships in their attack upon 
the buccaneers. But before deserting their ships 
the Dons had made every effort to prevent any 
possibility of their falling into the buccaneers’ 
hands. The largest galleon, which was called the 
Santissima Trinidad (Blessed Trinity) had been 
set afire and scuttled, but the buccaneers’ victory 
was so rapidly won that they reached her in time, 
extinguished the fire, stopped the leak and trans¬ 
ferred their wounded to her. The battle had 
begun soon after sunrise and by noon the last 

[ 143 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

shot had been fired, the fleet was in the hands of 
the buccaneers, and the standards of Sawkins, 
Sharp, Coxon and the others were floating from 
the mastheads in place of the gold and scarlet 
banners of Spain. 

“ Never in the annals of the buccaneers had such 
a victory been won; never had there been a 
sharper, bloodier battle, and even the captive 
Spanish captains were loud in their praise and 
admiration of the valor of the English. ‘ Captain 
Peralta declared,’ says Ringrose, that ‘surely you 
Englishmen are the valiantest men in the world, 
who designed always to fight open whilst other 
nations invented all ways imaginable to barricade 
themselves and fight as close as they could, and 
yet, notwithstanding, you killed more of your 
enemies than they of you.’ 

“And there, resting upon a gun still hot from 
recent fighting, Dampier drew his paper and ink- 
horn from his bamboo joint and on the blood¬ 
stained deck proceeded to make one of his ‘par¬ 
ticular draughts’ of the harbor and to write an 
account of the brave and exciting deeds through 
which he had just passed. 

“It was, of course, out of the question for the 
buccaneers to attempt to take Panama, for the 

[ 144 ] 


A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING 

defenses were powerful, it was surrounded with 
an immense, heavily armed wall, it swarmed with 
soldiers, as well as its thousands of citizens, and 
the large ships could not approach within cannon 
shot. But the buccaneers had little cause to com¬ 
plain. They had taken five ships, the largest, the 
Holy Trinity, a galleon of four hundred tons, and 
while the cargoes consisted of sugar, skins, soap 
and flour of little value, still, with good ships un¬ 
der their command, the buccaneers were in a posi¬ 
tion to take prizes and raid towns. To retain all 
five ships was not practical and, accordingly, two 
were promptly fired and sunk. Those saved were 
the Trinity; a sugar-laden ship of about two hun¬ 
dred tons, which was taken over by Cook; and a 
fifty-ton piragua in command of Coxon. Coxon 
was disgruntled, having been accused of back¬ 
wardness in the fight, and three days after the 
battle he left the buccaneers with twenty of his 
sympathizers and sailed away to Darien to march 
back to the Atlantic and his ship, taking with him 
the Indian guides. 

“A day or two later, Captain Sharp arrived, 
having taken a small Spanish bark while on his 
search for water, and shortly afterwards Captain 
Harris turned up, also with a prize. During 

[ 145 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


Sharp’s absence, Sawkins had been elected com¬ 
mandant, and, having turned loose all but their 
most important prisoners, the buccaneers pro¬ 
ceeded to Taboga Island to repair and refit the 
captured ships. 

“ While there the buccaneers were visited by a 
number of Spanish merchants from Panama who 
brought various supplies and goods to sell to the 
buccaneers, for, incredible as it may seem, the 
corsairs had a most remarkable habit of dealing 
fairly with tradesmen, even though they were 
slaughtering and robbing others. To these Span¬ 
ish merchants the buccaneers disposed of much 
of the material they had found on the ships, and 
Ringrose informs us that they paid excellent 
prices, offering two hundred pieces of eight for 
each slave the English could spare. You may 
wonder why unprincipled robbers and cut-throats 
like the buccaneers should dispose of their goods 
when they could have so easily possessed them¬ 
selves of their visitors ’ money without giving any¬ 
thing in return, but it was one of their codes of 
honor to deal fairly under such conditions and 
there is no record that they ever used violence or 
robbed a visitor or one who came to them on a 
friendly mission. 


[ 146 ] 


A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING 

‘‘While at Taboga, several ships were captured 
by the buccaneers, one of which proved a rich 
prize, as it contained two thousand jars of wine, 
fifty kegs of gunpowder and fifty-one thousand 
pieces of eight. Also, from this ship, the English 
learned of a galleon due from Lima with over one 
hundred thousand pieces of eight, and, rubbing 
their hands with satisfaction, the buccaneers pro¬ 
ceeded to make ready to receive her. 

“ Meanwhile, the governor of Panama sent a 
message to Sawkins asking why, in time of peace, 
British had attacked Spaniards and for what 
reason the buccaneers had come to Panama. To 
this Sawkins facetiously replied that they had 
come ‘to assist the King of Darien, who was true 
Lord of Panama,’ and that ‘having come so far 
they should have some satisfaction.’ Adding 
that ‘should His Excellency be pleased to send 
five hundred pieces of eight for each man and one 
thousand for each commander and would promise 
not further to annoy the Indians, but give them 
full liberty, then the buccaneers would depart 
peacefully, otherwise they would remain to get 
what they might! ’ And here also occurred another 
of the odd incidents which showed the buccaneers’ 
strange natures and point of view. One of the 

[ 147 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

Spanish merchants brought word to Captain 
Sawkins that the Bishop of Panama had formerly 
been the Bishop of Santa Marta and had been a 
captive of Sawkins when the latter took the place. 
Thereupon Sawkins sent the Bishop two loaves of 
sugar with his best wishes. In return, the Bishop 
sent a gold ring and his compliments and also a 
second message from the Governor. This time 
His Excellency wished to know from w T hom the 
buccaneers had commissions and to whom he 
should complain of the damages they had done. 
Evidently Sawkins was a humorous man, for he 
replied that, ‘As yet the company are not all to¬ 
gether, but when they are they will visit His Ex¬ 
cellency in Panama and bring their commissions 
in the muzzles of their guns, at which time you 
shall read them as plain as the flame of powder 
can make them. ’ But such interchanges of pleas¬ 
antries did not serve to satisfy the impatient men, 
and provisions were getting woefully low. In vain 
their commanders urged that they await the ar¬ 
rival of the plate ship from Peru. They de¬ 
manded action and food and at last, finding open 
mutiny would break out if he refused, Sawkins 
hoisted sail and, leaving Taboga, cruised west¬ 
ward along the coast in search of towns to sack 

[ 148 ] 


A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING 

and vessels to capture. In this they were quite 
successful. They took Otoque Island, looted the 
pearl catch from Coiba and attacked Puebla 
Nueva. But they met with disaster as well. Two 
of their vessels foundered, with a loss of twenty- 
two men, and on the attack upon Puebla Nueva 
brave Captain Sawkins met his death, and the buc¬ 
caneers were beaten off. 


[ 149 ] 


CHAPTER IX 


THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” OF CAPTAIN SHARP 

AY, that beat anything that Morgan did!” 
exclaimed Jack. “And yet, I never even 
heard of Sharp or Sawkins and the rest.” 

“Very true,” replied his father. “Many of the 
most remarkable deeds and adventures of the 
buccaneers and many of the most noted leaders 
have been practically forgotten. Fiction has kept 
alive such men as Morgan, while others, who were 
far more worthy of being perpetuated, are un¬ 
known to the world at large. As I said before, 
Sharp and his men outdid every other buccaneer 
and yet not one person in a thousand ever heard 
of them or the ‘most dangerous voyage.’ ” 

“But it seems to me they were really pirates,” 
said Fred. ‘ ‘ They knew the war was over and it 
was a low, mean trick to tell the Indians to kill 
the prisoners after the Spaniards had treated 
them so well.” 

“Of course they were pirates,” agreed his un¬ 
cle. “As I told you in the beginning, the buc- 

[ 150 ] 


THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” 

caneers were pirates—even though pirates were 
not always buccaneers—and the buccaneers freely 
admitted the fact. Indeed, Esquemeling, Ring- 
rose and the other chroniclers always wrote of 
themselves and their fellows as pirates. And as 
far as letting the Indians butcher the captives 
was concerned, you must remember that Ring- 
rose’s party were the ones who received the fa¬ 
vors from the Dons and he was merely a pilot or 
navigator and had no say in regard to the orders 
given by the captains. Moreover, the ‘reasons he 
could not dive into’ were perhaps sufficient to 
warrant the leaders 9 orders. But to return to the 
doings of the buccaneers after their defeat at 
Puebla Nueva. Sawkins was liked and respected 
by all the men; he was brave, courteous, fair and, 
for a buccaneer, very honorable, and when he was 
killed and Bartholomew Sharp was given com¬ 
mand of the expedition many men refused to con¬ 
tinue with the latter. They had joined the ven¬ 
ture under Sawkins, they did not care to be under 
any one else and they disliked Sharp. Moreover, 
the new commander announced that it was his in¬ 
tention to fit the Blessed Trinity as a buccaneer 
ship, to cruise along the west coast of South 
America, ravishing the Spanish towns, and to re- 

[ 151 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


turn to the Caribbean by sailing through the 
Straits of Magellan and completely circumnavi¬ 
gating South America. Even the hardy and dare¬ 
devil buccaneers were amazed at this. It was a 
venture fraught with the greatest hazard, a voyage 
such as no buccaneer had. ever undertaken, and 
there were those who openly expressed the opin¬ 
ion that Sharp must have gone mad to think of it. 

“And there is little wonder that they thought 
him insane. Imagine a lone ship—and a half- 
burned, far from seaworthy galleon at that—going 
pirating in the Pacific where every town, every 
man, every ship was an enemy; where there was not 
a friendly harbor in which to lie; where Spanish 
warships were numerous; where there was no buc¬ 
caneers’ lair in which to refit or provision and 
secure men, and where the buccaneers were com¬ 
pletely cut off, separated by thousands of miles, 
from their own countrymen. And then, even if 
the ship and its crew survived, think of the thou¬ 
sands of perils to be faced at every turn in at¬ 
tempting to navigate the almost unknown Ant¬ 
arctic seas and to round South America and sail 
for thousands of miles across the Atlantic to the 
West Indies. It was a scheme so wild, so danger¬ 
ous and so unheard of that nearly one-third of the 

[ 152 ] 


THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” 

men refused to stand by Sharp, and nearly seventy 
men declared their intention of braving the perils 
and hardships of a return march through the jun¬ 
gles of Darien rather than attempt the voyage. 
Among these deserters was Dampier; Wafer, the 
surgeon; Jobson of the Greek Testament, and 
others. Ringrose himself freely admits in his 
‘log’ that he was minded to accompany them and 
would have done so had he not been more afraid 
of the jungle and the Indians than of the proposed 
voyage. It is fortunate for us that he stuck to 
the ship, for otherwise we would have no record 
of that marvelous cruise. 

“And the deserters had anything but an easy 
time of it, and often, ere they reached the Carib¬ 
bean and their own ships, they heartily wished 
that they had remained with Captain Sharp. 

“Bad as the crossing had been before, it was 
now a thousand times worse. It was the height 
of the rainy season; it poured incessantly day 
and night; the forest was little more than a vast 
morass and the rivers were swollen, raging tor¬ 
rents. The Indians refused to guide the men, 
owing partly to the weather conditions and partly 
as they were disgusted at having been cheated 
out of their revenge on the Dons and the joy of 

[ 153 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

butchering them, and the buccaneers were in a sad 
plight. In vain they offered beads, cloth, hatchets 
and similar articles of trade for guides. They 
were in despair until one of the men, evidently 
familiar with women’s ways, dug a sky-blue petti¬ 
coat from among his loot and slipped it quickly 
over the head of the chief’s wife. His ruse worked 
like a charm. The wife added her arguments to 
those of the buccaneers, and the chief, throwing 
up his hands in despair, agreed to lead the buc¬ 
caneers across the Isthmus. But even with their 
Indian guide /their plight was pitiable. They 
plunged through deep swamps, fought their way 
through wicked, thorn-covered jungles, hacked 
and hewed a pathway through the forest, swam 
swollen rivers, were drenched with rain, infested 
with ticks, tortured by mosquitoes and almost 
starved. For days at a time they could not light 
a fire; they had no shelters; the clothes were torn 
from their bodies; their sodden shoes fell from 
their blistered, bleeding feet. Sometimes a whole 
day’s labor would result in less than two miles 
of progress and their best time was but five or 
six miles a day. For twenty-three days they en¬ 
dured every hardship and torture, traveling one 
hundred and ten miles and losing their way a hun- 

[ 154 ] 


# 


THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” 

dred times despite their Indian gnide. On the 
morning of the eighth day they reached a river 
so wide and swift none dared to attempt it, and 
after a deal of argument it was decided to choose 
a man by lot to swim the torrent with a line. The 
lot fell upon one George Gayney. Unfortunately 
for him he was an avaricious fellow and insisted 
on carrying his share of loot—three hundred 
pieces of eight—in a bag lashed to his back. When 
midway across he was whirled about by the cur¬ 
rent, he became entangled in the rope and was 
carried under and drowned. But another took 
his place, the rope was gotten across and, half- 
drowned, the party reached the opposite bank. 
A few days later they found poor Gayney’s body 
with the bag of coins still lashed to his back, but 
so miserable and spent were the men that they did 
not even bother to secure the silver but left the 
corpse there upon the river’s bank, money and all. 
Another unfortunate was the surgeon, Wafer. 
By an accidental discharge of some powder he 
received a serious wound in the leg and, unable 
to walk, was left with some Indians to recover. 
While convalescing he used his skill for the In¬ 
dians’ benefit, and the redmen, impressed by what 
they considered magic, treated him like a god. 

[ 155 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

To show their gratitude and esteem they stripped 
him of his ragged garments, painted him from 
head to foot with every color of the rainbow and 
enthroned him in a regal hut. But Wafer had no 
mind to pass his remaining days as an Indian 
witch doctor or medicine man. Watching his op¬ 
portunity he stole away, and garbed only in his 
coat of paint, sneaked off through the forest to¬ 
wards the coast. Months later, after untold 
hardships, he came in sight of the sea, and, with¬ 
out thinking of his appearance, rushed toward a 
party of buccaneers who fortunately were at hand 
nearby. For an instant the buccaneers gaped in 
amazement, utterly at a loss to understand who 
the nude, gorgeously painted creature was, and 
not until he shouted to them in English did they 
realize that it was the long-lost surgeon, Wafer. 
Never had buccaneer appeared before in such 
guise; they roared with laughter, and many were 
the rude jests and coarse jokes passed at the doc¬ 
tor’s expense. But poor Jobson, the divinity 
student, was less fortunate. He too had been 
overcome and left behind, and while he eventually 
managed to rejoin his comrades he was too far 
spent to recover and a few days later he died, his 
Greek Testament still clasped in his hand. But 

[ 156 ] 


THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” 


aside from Gayney and Jobson no lives were lost, 
and a few days after reaching the Caribbean 
shores the buccaneers were rescued by a French 
buccaneer, Captain Tristian, along with the loot 
they had carried throughout their awful journey, 
and Dampier’s ‘ joyente of bamboo’ which the nat¬ 
uralist-buccaneer had preserved unharmed and 
within which was the closely written journal 
wherein he had daily set down every event of in¬ 
terest or note. 

“Meanwhile, back at Coiba Island, Sharp and 
his companions were preparing for their mo¬ 
mentous undertaking. Stripping the other vessels 
of all fittings and arms, Sharp scuttled and burned 
them and proceeded to equip the Blessed Trinity 
for a pirate ship. Her high and ornately gilded 
poop was in the way, and with axes and hatchets 
the buccaneers hacked and chopped away the gal¬ 
leries and moldings, knocked off a tier or two of 
cabins and, hastily boarding it up, mounted guns 
with their grim muzzles protruding from what 
once had been the stained glass windows. Ports 
were cut in bulwarks and topsides, the decks were 
stripped of all unnecessary gear, the rigging was 
overhauled, and the ship with the holy name was 
ready for her most unholy work. At Coiba they 

[ 157 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


laid in a supply of turtles, salted deer meat, and 
water, and on the afternoon of June 6, 1679, they 
sailed forth from Coiba Island on their marvelous 
voyage. 

“It is not necessary to relate in detail all that 
took place thereafter. They cruised along the 
coast, captured all the ships they saw and either 
sunk them or, cutting away all hut one mast, tilled 
them with their prisoners and set them adrift to 
sink or sail as the fates decreed. Sharp at times 
showed intense cruelty, and whenever priests were 
taken he ordered them butchered out of hand 
and often tossed them overboard while still 
living. Ringrose says, ‘Such cruelties, though I 
abhorred very much in my heart, yet here was I 
forced to hold my tongue as having no authority 
to oversway them.’ And they captured many a 
town, too. Arica, Hilo, Coquimbo, La Serena, 
were attacked, sacked and burned; but the buc¬ 
caneers often came near to destruction also. Only 
by luck did they escape, and at La Serena the 
Dons, under cover of darkness, swam to the Trin¬ 
ity on inflated hides, placed combustibles and ex¬ 
plosives between the rudder and the stern post of 
the ship and fired them. Just in time the buc¬ 
caneers discovered the source of the blaze and pre- 

[158] 


THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” 


vented the loss of ship and all within her. Fear¬ 
ing their numerous prisoners would plot success¬ 
fully against them, the buccaneers, after this, set 
all the Dons ashore and, finding it necessary to 
refit, sailed to Juan Fernandez island. 

“It was now December, and the buccaneers 
spent a wild and riotous Christmas upon the isle, 
firing salutes, building bonfires, singing and 
shouting, drinking and carousing; frightening the 
seals and the birds with their wild cries, startling 
the goats with their ribald laughter; gambling and 
making merry, for which we can scarcely blame 
them, for it was the first holiday they had had 
since leaving Coiba, five months before. 

“And here at Juan Fernandez dissensions 
among the men once more arose. Some were for 
going home at once; others wished to remain 
longer, while all declared they would sail no 
longer under Sharp for the reason—incredible as 
it may seem—that he had failed to observe the 
Sabbath! So here on Juan Fernandez the un¬ 
godly pirates deposed their commander because 
he was not sufficiently religious and in his stead 
elected a hoary old buccaneer named John Wat- 
ling. Sharp, naturally resenting this, was quickly 
silenced by being cast, willynilly, into the hold, 

[159] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEEB3 

where he had ample chance to think over his 
wicked past and moralize on the psychology of 
men who would slit a friar’s throat one moment 
and clamor for prayers and divine services the 
next. 

“ Under their new captain the Sabbath was rig¬ 
orously observed, and Ringrose writes, speaking 
of the first Sunday under Watling’s command, 

4 This day was the first Sunday that ever we kept 
by command and consent since the loss and death 
of our valiant commander, Captain Sawkins. Our 
generous-hearted commander threw the dice over¬ 
board, finding them in use on the said day. ’ 

“ Under Watling, the Trinity sailed to Iquique 
and there captured several prisoners, among them 
an aged Indian from whom they sought to obtain 
information of Arica, which they planned to raid 
the second time. Evidently, from what transpired, 
Captain Sharp had seen the error of his ways and 
had made up his mind to be a most moral pirate in 
future. Having been released from the hold, he 
was on deck when the Indian prisoner was ques¬ 
tioned, and he protested most vehemently against 
Watling’s orders to shoot the prisoner because, 
so the buccaneers imagined, he had not told them 
the truth. Finding his pleas for the Indian in 

[ 160 ] 


THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” 


vain, Sharp dipped his hands in a basin of water 
and dramatically declared, 4 Gentlemen, I am 
clear of the blood of this old man. And I will 
warrant yon a hot day for this piece of cruelty 
whenever we come to fight at Arica.’ 

“And verily did the buccaneers learn to their 
sorrow how they had misjudged the Indian and 
how true was Sharp’s prophecy, for Arica had 
been strongly fortified and garrisoned, just as the 
captive had related; the buccaneers were igno- 
miniously defeated with heavy loss; Captain Wat- 
ling and a number of other officers were killed, 
and the beaten and decimated buccaneers clamored 
loudly for Bartholomew Sharp once more to take 
command. Sharp, however, refused at first to 
listen to them, having had enough of their fickle 
natures, but finding that, unless he or some one 
took charge immediately all would be destroyed, 
he at last consented, and after severe fighting 
managed to get the survivors to their ship, al¬ 
though the surgeons were left behind. In fact 
the buccaneers had the closest shave of all their 
lives at Arica. Not only were they beaten back, 
killed and wounded by scores, and forced to re¬ 
treat to the outlying country in disorder, but the 
Dons were on the point of destroying their boats 

[ 161 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

when they were rallied by Sharp, and only by a 
sharp hand-to-hand struggle did the English suc¬ 
ceed in recovering them. Now, however, the men 
looked upon Sharp with reverence and awe, for 
not only had he saved their lives, but with the 
superstition of sailors, they remembered his 
prophecy, believed he had occult power and cursed 
the late Watling right and left for having de¬ 
stroyed the Indian prisoner and disregarded 
Sharp’s warning. 

“The buccaneers were now greatly reduced in 
numbers. They had lost twenty-eight killed and 
eighteen desperately wounded, as well as about a 
dozen who had fallen into the Spaniards’ hands, 
and of the original one hundred and forty men 
who had set sail on the wild adventure in the 
Trinity a bare seventy now remained who were 
in condition to work or fight. But lack of men 
did not trouble Sharp in the least. Heading north¬ 
ward, they ravished city after city, leaving a trail 
of blood and smoke behind them, and at last put 
into the Gulf of Nicoya, battered, weatherbeaten 
and vastly in need of repairs to both themselves 
and their ship. But when off San Miguel dissen¬ 
sions had once more arisen, and forty-seven 
more of the men deserted and headed overland 

[ 162 ] 


THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” 


across Darien as had those who had gone before. 
Their experiences were much the same as those 
others, although as the rainy season had not come 
on they were more fortunate, but they had many 
narrow escapes and many adventures neverthe¬ 
less. 

“With his forces now reduced to less than fifty 
men Sharp put into the Gulf, took prizes of 
the ships there, raided the villages and by good 
luck succeeded in making prisoners of some ship¬ 
wrights and carpenters who were engaged in 
building ships for the Spaniards. These artizans 
he impressed into his service and at once pro¬ 
ceeded to put the battered Blessed Trinity into 
condition for the long and dangerous voyage 
around South America and up the Atlantic to the 
Antilles. For, despite losses, desertions and all, 
Sharp and the remaining buccaneers were deter¬ 
mined to carry out their original plans. They had 
now been in the Pacific for over a year, carrying 
terror far and wide, swooping upon every town 
or village they could find, capturing vessels and 
ever managing to escape in their shot-torn, dingy 
old galleon, and now Sharp planned to make her 
as staunch and seaworthy as possible with the ma¬ 
terials and labor at his command. With almost 

[ 163 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


superhuman efforts the deck was taken up and 
relaid, new planking was put in her shattered 
sides, the masts were all shortened and the ship 
was rerigged and refitted from truck to water line. 
Then Sharp graciously thanked his captive car¬ 
penters and presented them with a vessel he had 
captured as a reward for their services. Then, 
freeing all the prisoners and most of the slaves 
they had taken, the buccaneers set sail for the 
Gulf of Dulee, where the ship was careened and 
cleaned, it having been impossible to do this at 
Nicoya. The condition that the craft was in can 
be imagined as she had not been cleaned, either 
outside or in, since she had fallen into the buc¬ 
caneers’ hands—and the Lord only knows when 
before that. Ringrose states that, ‘when we came 
to cleanse her hold both myself and several others 
were struck blind with the filth and nastiness of 
it.’ 

‘ ‘ But at last it was done and the Trinity sailed 
forth from the Gulf of Dulce and started on her 
long deferred voyage to the distant Caribbean. 
And as they sailed, many a rich prize fell to those 
upon the one-time galleon. Within ten days after 
starting, a ship was taken with over forty thou¬ 
sand pieces of eight and, by a strange coincidence, 

[ 164 ] 


THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” 


this proved to be the same ship from which they 
had won so much treasure and wine in Panama 
harbor over a year before. Ship after ship they 
took, but ever freeing all prisoners and turning 
them loose in the vessels after they had been 
looted, for Sharp had no mind to burden himself 
with hungry mouths which were of no use to him. 
Down the coast they sailed, avoiding conflicts 
ashore,—although, truth to tell, there was little to 
be got after having raided the coast twice within 
the twelvemonth,—until finally, leaving the last 
settlements and inhabited lands astern, they bore 
through cold and stormy seas towards the tip of 
the continent. They stopped in at Tierra del 
Fuego, found and mapped uncharted, storm- 
lashed isles, hunted penguins and seals, and bat¬ 
tered by mountainous waves, buffeted by ice-laden 
gales, crept ever farther south, searching for the 
entrance to the Strait of Magellan. 

“And remember that they had only the crudest 
instruments with which to navigate, only a rough 
quadrant for finding their latitude, and no means 
whatever, save dead reckoning, for determining 
their longitude. Their ship, despite their efforts 
to put it in seaworthy shape, was leaky, strained 
and filled with patched shot holes, and they were 

[ 165 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

in one of the stormiest parts of the world in 
the wildest season of the year. Often their sails 
were torn to ribbons or carried away, the ship 
was sheathed in ice, and after tedious beating 
through storm and sleet for days they would be 
driven back in a night farther than they had 
gained in a week. Let me quote a few passages 
from Ringrose’s log and you will get a better 
idea of what that handful of grim buccaneers in 
the Blessed Trinity underwent. Here, for exam¬ 
ple, under date of November 10th, he says, ‘Day 
being come the wind increased and at noon 
blew our mainsail to pieces. Hereupon we were 
forced to lower the yard and unbend the sail, 
lying under mizzen. But that too gave way 
and all the rest of the day we lay a hull 
in dark weather, foggy and windy, with a huge 
sea that of tentime rolled over us.’ The next day 
he reports, ‘All last night we had furious weather 
with seas higher and higher.’ On November 16th 
the fore shrouds gave way; for several days here¬ 
after it was ‘so foggy we could not see the stem 
from the stern’; they narrowly escaped running 
into icebergs and, to make matters worse, their 
provisions had run low and the men were on the 
most scanty rations. Several of the crew were 

[166] 


THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” 


frostbitten; others were so benumbed with the 
intense cold they could not stand, and at last they 
realized that they could not find the sought-for 
Straits and that there was nothing for it but to 
stand on to the eastward through uncharted polar 
seas in the hopes of rounding Cape Horn. 

“Day after day they kept on, bending on new 
sails as fast as they were carried away; splicing 
and repairing rigging as it parted; half starved, 
numb with cold, often unable to secure a sight to 
learn where they were, but ever grimly heading 
east and north and blindly plunging into the long, 
green, storm-swept seas. 

“And at last they found they were making 
northing, the tempests were less severe, the 
weather was appreciably warmer, and they real¬ 
ized, with heartfelt joy, that they had rounded the 
Cape and actually were in the Atlantic. By the 
7th of December they were well north of Cape 
Horn—off the mouth of Rio de la Plata, in fact— 
but they had sighted no land since leaving Tierra 
del Fuego and had not the least idea how many 
scores or hundreds of miles they might be from 
either the South American or the African coast. 

“Now the awful struggles the ship had under¬ 
gone began to tell, and she sprang more leaks, 

,[167] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

until the men, on less than quarter rations, were 
compelled to toil day and night at the pumps. 
Yet they were cheered, for the weather was con¬ 
stantly becoming warmer and fairer, and though 
several men died from the result of frost bites and 
exposure, the others took heart. But it was mad¬ 
dening for them to see porpoises, dolphins, bonitos 
and sea birds about their ship and yet be unable 
to obtain them to eke out their perilously low sup¬ 
ply of food. The fish would not take the hook, 
the birds gave them no chance to shoot, and the 
haggard, dull-eyed, tattered men watched with 
hungry eyes the bountiful supply of food quite 
beyond their reach. 

“ Since leaving the tropics in the Pacific not a 
mouthful of meat, save a few oily penguins and a 
seal or two, had passed their lips. The only meat 
upon the ship was a sow which had been taken 
aboard as a suckling pig in the far-off Gulf of 
Nicoya, and on Christmas Day this was slaught¬ 
ered for the men’s dinner. Starvation was staring 
them in the face, but on January 5th they captured 
a hundred-and-twenty-pound albicore and great 
was the rejoicing. Two days later they took an 
even larger one, and now they discovered that 
their water casks had sprung leaks and that only 

[ 168 ] 



Two SHIPS WERE PROMPTLY FIRED AND SUNK 





The battered, patched old galleon sailed southward around Cape Horn 



THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” 


a few pannikins of the precious liquid remained. 
Only a quart a day was allowed to a man, and 
sweltering under the equatorial sun, baffled with 
light winds and calms, the men’s plight was pitia¬ 
ble. In order to keep afloat they toiled ceaselessly 
at the pumps, falling exhausted on the sizzling 
decks, cursing and moaning, crying for water, and 
several dying raving mad. 

“But now they were well north of the equator. 
Somewhere ahead, Ringrose felt sure, were the 
Caribbean isles they longed to see, and Captain 
Sharp offered a reward to the first man to sight 
land. 

“On the 28th of January the glad cry came ring¬ 
ing from the masthead and, straining their eyes, 
the half dead men saw the faint and hazy outline 
of land upon the horizon. Then cheer after cheer 
rose from those thirst-cracked throats, the men 
forgot their troubles, their hunger, their ceaseless 
toil, for all recognized the welcome bit of earth as 
the island of Barbados. 

“Marvelous indeed had been Ringrose’s naviga¬ 
tion. Had he been equipped with a modern sex¬ 
tant, with the latest nautical almanacs and the 
most perfect chronometer, he could not have done 
better. By sheer dead reckoning for his longitude, 

[169] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

and by bis crude instruments to find bis latitude, 
be bad won within ten miles of the goal for which 
he bad made—truly an almost incredible piece of 
seamanship. 

4 4 Weather-beaten, patched, her rigging frayed 
and spliced; her masts awry, her sails mended 
and discolored, with gaping holes in her bulwarks, 
with the charred marks of fire still upon her 
hacked-off poop and with her crew more like 
ghosts than living men, the Blessed Trinity headed 
for Bridgetown with the frayed and faded British 
ensign at her peak and Sharp’s red banner with 
its green and white ribbons at her masthead. 

4 4 But the homesick, sea-weary buccaneers were 
not to set foot upon the green shores of Barbados, 
for within the bay lay a British frigate. Sharp 
realized that, in the eyes of the law, he and his 
men were pirates, and so, with clanging pumps, 
the Trinity swept by the island, while the wonder¬ 
ing folk ashore gazed in amazement at this strange 
ship, this vision that, gaunt and gray and battered, 
slipped by like a wraith, and to their superstitious 
minds savored of the Flying Dutchman . But the 
buccaneers’ 4 most dangerous voyage’ was almost 
at an end. At Antigua, two days later, Ringrose 
and thirteen of the men went ashore and secured 

[170] 



THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” 


passage on the Lisbon Merchant for England, 
while Sharp and the others sailed to Nevis. There 
the ‘great sea artist and admirable captain/ as 
Ringrose calls him, presented his men with the 
ship and sailed for Bristol. 

‘ ‘ Thus ended that most memorable voyage, that 
venture which had taken the buccaneers across 
Darien, up and down the length of South America 
twice, and around Cape Horn and back to the 
Antilles in a captured Spanish galleon. Two years 
had passed since they had plunged into the jungles 
of Darien; two years without sight of fellow coun¬ 
trymen or news of home; two years in enemies’ 
seas and enemies’ country, and welcome indeed 
was the sight of the verdant British islands and 
of Englishmen once more.” 

“What became of Captain Sharp and Ring- 
rose!” asked Jack. “Gosh, that was a wonderful 
voyage. It ought to be more famous than Mor¬ 
gan’s.” 

“Sharp and a number of his men were tried for 
piracy when they arrived in England,” replied 
Mr. Bickford. “But they were acquitted. The 
specific charge brought against them was the 
taking of the San Rosario and the killing of her 
captain, but it was proved that the Spaniards fired 

[171] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

the first shot and the men were freed on a plea of 
self-defense. Their fellows, who after Sharp’s 
departure made their way to Jamaica, were less 
fortunate. Two of the three were acquitted, but 
the third pleaded guilty and was hanged. Ring- 
rose himself settled down for a well-earned, quiet 
life, but the love of the sea and the call of adven¬ 
ture was too great. In 1683 he joined with his old 
comrades Wafer, Dampier and Swan and went 
back to the Pacific, piloting the ship Cygnet around 
Cape Horn. He was killed a few years later in a 
battle with the Dons on the west coast of Central 
America, but that is another story. ’ ’ 

“But, Dad, you didn’t tell us how much loot 
they got in all that time,” complained Jack. 

“It’s not recorded,” replied his father. “Ow¬ 
ing to the long voyage the treasure was divided 
up after every raid or prize. But the greatest 
treasure they took they threw away.” 

“How on earth was that?” asked Fred. 

His uncle chuckled. ‘ < I often think what a bitter 
pill it must have been for Sharp and the others to 
swallow,” replied Mr. Bickford. “The San Ro¬ 
sario —the ship for the taking of which the men 
were tried—had very little treasure aboard her, 
apparently. She was laden with huge ingots of 

[ 172 ] 


THE “MOST DANGEROUS VOYAGE” 

what the buccaneers supposed was tin and this was 
thrown overboard, one of the buccaneers retaining 
a single ingot as a keepsake. Imagine the chagrin 
of the men when, during their trial, they learned 
that the supposed tin was solid silver! They had 
cast into the sea, as worthless, more riches than 
they had won on their entire venture!’ ’ 


[ 173 ] 


CHAPTER X 


THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS 

OSH, that was a good joke on the buc¬ 



caneer s,” laughed Jack. 44 Now do tell 
us more about Ringrose, Dad. He must 


have been a fine fellow. Just as soon as you get 
through I’m going to borrow that log of his and 
read it from beginning to end.” 

44 Me, too,” cried Fred with enthusiasm. 44 And 
I’m going to read Esquemeling.” 

4 4 You’ll find both Esquemeling’s and Ring- 
rose’s log most interesting,” said Mr. Bickford, 
44 and you’ll be amused at the map. See here— 
this is the chart by which Ringrose steered the 
Trinity . See how the Amazon and the Rio de la 
Plata are pictured as one huge estuary of the sea, 
making part of Brazil and all of Uruguay and 
Paraguay into a great island. Very little was 
known of South America in those days, although, 
as you will notice, the West Indies and Central 
America were accurately shown.” 

44 Golly, I don’t see how they ever did get 


[ 174 ] 


THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS 


around,” declared Fred, as the two boys studied 
the ancient chart. “Hadn’t any one else ever 
sailed around the Horn before!” 

“Yes,” replied his uncle. “Vasco da Gama 
had done so, and Drake and Magellan had gone 
through the Straits, but no buccaneer had ever 
attempted it and none had sailed from the Pacific 
around into the Atlantic. But the success of 
Sharp’s voyage and Ringrose’s experiences led 
the way for many a later buccaneer raid into the 
South Sea, as they called the Pacific. Buccaneer¬ 
ing was no longer a safe profession in the Carib¬ 
bean, for any buccaneers caught were tried and 
hanged as pirates, but the South Seas were out of 
England’s jurisdiction and offered a fine field. It 
is unnecessary to go into details of all the buc¬ 
caneering, or perhaps I might say pirating, 
cruises that were made to the Pacific, but it is well 
to learn a little of the more noteworthy ones, 
especially as our old friends Dampier, Wafer and 
Ringrose took prominent parts in them. 

“The first buccaneers to sail for the ‘South Sea’ 
after Sharp’s exploits became known, set forth 
from Chesapeake Bay in August, 1683. Their 
ship was the Revenge, of eighteen guns and sev¬ 
enty men, in charge of Captain John Davis, who 

[175] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

had won considerable fame as a pirate by sacking 
St. Angnstine, Florida. With Davis went Cook, 
who had accompanied Sharp, as well as Wafer, 
the surgeon, who had received such unappreciated 
honors at the hands of the Darien Indians. Off 
the coast of Sierra Leone they seized a Danish 
ship of thirty-six guns and, finding her a much 
better vessel than their own, at once transferred 
their belongings to the prize and scuttled the 
Revenge. Then, renaming their new ship the 
Bachelors’ Delight, the corsairs headed for Cape 
Horn and reached Juan Fernandez without mis¬ 
hap. Here they fell in with another buccaneer 
ship, the Nicholas, and together the two cruised 
northward to the Gulf of Nicoya, taking many 
prizes and attacking, with considerable success, 
the smaller towns on the South America coast. 
In the Gulf of Nicoya Cook died and Davis was 
left as sole commander-in-chief. Those on the 
Nicholas, however, were bent on pirating through 
the East Indies and shortly after Cook’s death 
parted from the Bachelors’ Delight and set off on 
their own account, leaving a grewsome trail 
through the South Seas and along the African 
coast on their way to England. Davis and his 
company confined their activities to the American 

[176] 


THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS 

coast until they met the Cygnet at the Island of 
La Plata. The latter, which had been fitted out as 
a trader in London, had soon abandoned peace¬ 
able pursuits and had become a full-fledged pirate 
with our old friend Ringrose as navigator or pilot 
and Dampier, the naturalist-author, as quarter¬ 
master, with an old buccaneer named Swan in 
command. The two ships at once agreed to keep 
together and we may be sure there were wildly 
hilarious times when Dampier, Ringrose, Wafer 
and the others once more met, here in this 
out-of-the-world spot in the Pacific. Remember¬ 
ing the rich pickings they had had under Sharp, 
the veterans urged attacks on Paita, Guayaquil, 
Panama and other towns as they had done in the 
Trinity . But the Dons had grown wise; corsairs 
were no longer rare or unexpected upon the Pa¬ 
cific, and a warm reception met the buccaneers at 
every town they visited. They took many prizes 
nevertheless, and we may be quite sure that no 
more cargoes of ‘tin’ were cast into the sea. 

“For several weeks they blockaded Panama, 
and while off this port they were reenforced by 
Captains Grogniet and L’Escayer, French buc¬ 
caneers, who with two hundred Frenchmen and 
one hundred and eighty English had crossed the 

[177] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


Isthmus. Shortly after, Captain Townley with 
one hundred and eighty buccaneers arrived by the 
same route, and a little later two hundred and sixty 
more French appeared. With a total force of 
nine hundred and sixty men, which Davis divided 
among ten captured ships, the buccaneers felt they 
were strong enough to withstand anything and 
impatiently awaited the arrival of the plate fleet 
from Lima. 

‘ 4 But when, on May 28, 1685, the long-expected 
treasure fleet hove in sight the buccaneers’ hearts 
fell. For the Dons had been warned and instead 
of helpless galleons carrying the vast fortune in 
gold and bullion, the pirates saw,, to their conster¬ 
nation, that the plate was convoyed by six great 
Spanish warships, six smaller sloops of war and 
two fire ships. The buccaneers had no mind to 
commit suicide and after firing a few defiant-shots 
at long range they very wisely pulled up anchors 
and sailed away, leaving the triumphant Dons to 
discharge their precious cargo in peace. 

“ Arriving at the Island of Quibo, the bucca¬ 
neers met still another party of pirates and almost 
at once dissensions arose between the French and 
British corsairs. As a result, Davis and his men 
sailed north, plundered Leon and Rio Lexa in 

[178] 


THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS 

Nicaragua, and, learning that a plate ship was due 
from Manila, they cruised along the coasts of 
Mexico and Central America awaiting its arrival. 
But they were not content to wait patiently and 
must needs raid the coastal towns, with the result 
that over sixty of Swan’s men were cut off and 
completely wiped out by a Spanish ambuscade. 
This was the most severe blow the pirates had 
ever received on the South Sea, and among the 
killed were several officers and the pilot, Basil 
Ringrose. 

“ Disappointed at missing the galleon and furi¬ 
ous at the loss of his men, Swan accused Davis of 
negligence and a severe quarrel arose among the 
buccaneers. This ended in Swan setting sail for 
the Philippines, where his men mutinied and the 
unfortunate captain and thirty-six others were 
marooned, the Cygnet sailing on without them. 
Among the mutineers was Dampier, still, no 
doubt, keeping his journal in his ‘joyente of 
bamboo,’ and very interestingly he wrote of the 
Celebes, Timor, New Holland and Australia. At 
the Nicobar Islands Dampier had had enough of 
pirating, and with a few companions, deserted the 
Cygnet and by hook or crook managed to reach 
England in safety, where he devoted the rest of 

[179] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

his life to publishing his journals and his ‘special 
draughts’ for the edification of his less adven¬ 
turous countrymen. 

“It was lucky he did so, for the ship, thoroughly 
unseaworthy, barely succeeded in reaching Mada¬ 
gascar before she foundered. Here some of the 
men settled down and took service with the native 
chiefs while others, in time, reached home. 

“In the meantime, Townley had also left Swan 
and had set out to rejoin his erstwhile French 
allies, with whom he took vast treasure at Quibo, 
Grenada and Lavelia, although Townley lost his 
life at the last place. 

“The Bachelors’ Delight continued to cruise up 
and down the coast of Peru for the next two years, 
sacking many towns, seizing innumerable ships 
and accumulating vast plunder, which Davis is 
reputed to have hidden on the Galapagos Islands. 

“But the Dons were becoming heartily sick of 
the nuisance of the English pirates, and early in 
1687, sent a powerful fleet to destroy them. A 
terrific battle resulted, a running fight being kept 
up for seven days, and, though many of the pi¬ 
rates were killed, the ship managed to escape. 
The buccaneers, however, had had a wholesome 
lesson, and when, a few days later, they again 

[180] 


THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS 

met Townley’s men they decided to revenge them¬ 
selves for their loss by one last raid. This fell 
on Guayaquil, which was taken and sacked, and 
then, realizing even the South Sea was becoming 
too hot for them, the pirates refitted at the Gala¬ 
pagos and sailed around Cape Horn to the Virgin 
Islands, where they arrived in 1688, after five 
years of pirating in the Pacific.” 

“Gosh, I never knew before that there were 
buccaneers in the Philippines and Madagascar 
and all those places, ’’ said Jack. ‘ ‘ Say, they went 
all over the world, didn’t they?” 

“You forget,” his father reminded him, “that 
they were no longer buccaneers in the true sense 
of the word. They had degenerated to common 
pirates and attacked any ship they met, except 
British, and they were not by any means over- 
punctilious in that respect. Early in the eight¬ 
eenth century,—soon after the Cygnet’s wreck, in 
fact,—Madagascar became a favorite pirates’ lair 
and they even set up an independent kingdom, or 
rather republic, there. Had they possessed a 
leader such as Morgan, Mansvelt or Sharp, no 
doubt they would have maintained a colony which 
might have established British dominion over a 
vast area, but they were always quarreling among 

[181] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

themselves and never succeeded in anything for 
long. ’ ’ 

“But what became of them all?” asked Fred. 
“They never seemed to get killed off or hung.” 

“Some settled down in the West Indies, others 
in England or Europe and others in the Ameri¬ 
can colonies, and led respectable lives under ficti¬ 
tious names among people who never suspected 
who they were. At times, though, they were rec¬ 
ognized, brought to trial or hung or managed to 
slip away and find new homes. Many a well-to-do 
planter in the West Indies; many a wealthy mer¬ 
chant and shipowner in the New England colonies, 
made the beginnings of his fortune by pirating. 
And many of them, of whom the world never 
hears, led most romantic and adventurous lives. 
For example, there was Red Legs. He was a 
most picturesque character—not a pirate by 
choice, but by force of circumstances, and I’m 
happy to say that he eventually became a highly 
respected and charitable man. Indeed, I have ac¬ 
tually stopped in the house he built and occupied 
after he gave up piracy.” 

“Oh, do tell about him!” cried Jack. “Gee— 
that’s a great name—Red Legs! I’ll bet he was 
a peach of a pirate.” 


[ 182 ] 


THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS 


“He was,” asserted Mr. Bickford, with a smile. 
“But I must pass over his career very briefly, for 
there were many other interesting buccaneers and 
pirates I have not mentioned as yet. 

“Red Legs was originally a slave—one of those 
unfortunates who were taken during Cromwell’s 
time, and, because they wore kilts—being Irish 
and Scotch, they were nicknamed ‘ red-legs.’ At 
that time it was customary to ship prisoners and 
malefactors as slaves to the West Indies, where 
they were sold for fifteen hundred pounds of sugar 
each. They were marked or branded like cattle, 
compelled to labor with the blacks and were 
treated far more cruelly than the negro slaves. 
Many of them were shipped to Barbados and their 
descendants may still be seen there and are still 
called ‘red-legs.’ A few have become well-to-do, 
but the majority are miserable, ragged, degen¬ 
erate folk who have never recovered from the 
effects of their ancestors’ servitude. 

“The future pirate ‘Red Legs,’ however, fell 
into good hands—a planter who secretly sympa¬ 
thized with the prisoners’ cause,—and he was 
well educated and was practically adopted by his 
owner. When still a mere lad, however, his owner 
died and he was sold to a cruel master who made 

[183] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

life miserable for him. As a result, be decided to 
stow away on some ship bound for a Dutch island, 
but in the darkness, when swimming to the vessel, 
he became confused and by chance clambered onto 
the deck of a buccaneer ship. As a result, he was 
compelled to join the pirates and took part in 
their raids. But he was no pirate at heart. He 
could never bear the sight of tortures or brutality 
and resented the treatment of captive women. 
Once, in a quarrel over a female prisoner whom 
the captain was maltreating, the ex-slave killed 
his commander and, to his amazement, was elected 
captain himself. As a buccaneer chief he per¬ 
formed some really amazing deeds. He took the 
Island of Margarita and the vast fortune in pearls 
awaiting transportation to Spain. He sacked 
Santa Ysobel in Mexico, and he became one of the 
most notorious West Indian corsairs, although he 
was famed for the fact that he never permitted 
cruelties or the butchering of prisoners. Even¬ 
tually he tired of the life and settled in Nevis with 
an old crony. Here he was discovered and cast 
into prison, but was freed by the earthquake that 
destroyed the town and, clinging to a floating bit 
of wreckage, escaped the fate of thousands of the 
citizens. Eventually he made his way to Dom- 

[184] 


THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS 

inica, settled down again and spent the remain¬ 
ing days of his life in peace, a most worthy citi¬ 
zen. But ever he must have lived in deadly fear 
of discovery or betrayal. His house was built 
like a fortress with moats, heavy walls and under¬ 
ground vaults, while the balustrade to his veran¬ 
dah was most fittingly fashioned from old musket 
barrels/’ 

“Well, he was really a good pirate/’ declared 
Jack. “Were there any others like 11™?’’ 

“Not exactly,’’ replied his father. “But men 
often took to piracy for most peculiar reasons. 
For example, there was Major Stede Bonnet, also 
a native of Barbados. But unlike Red Legs, 
Major Bonnet, far from being a slave, was a most 
honored and well-to-do member of the colony. He 
was a gentleman by birth, well educated, pos¬ 
sessed a large fortune and was an army officer. 
However, there was one fly in the gallant Major’s 
ointment. He had a nagging, scolding wife. But 
not until in 1716, when the Major began acting 
most strangely, did tongues begin to wag oyer him 
or his household. At that date Major Bonnet sud¬ 
denly purchased a sloop, fitted her with ten guns 
and engaged a crew of seventy men. Then, in¬ 
deed, did speculation become rife. To all in- 

[185] 


THE BOYS* BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


quiries the Major replied ‘wait’ and the mystery 
deepened as the shipwrights rigged the craft, and 
upon its stern appeared the name ‘ Revenge / 
Then one dark night, the Revenge slipped out of 
the harbor and disappeared, but in a few months 
came tidings of her that were a nine days’ wonder 
in Barbados. Major Stede had turned pirate! 
The Revenge was cruising off the American coast, 
taking prizes right and left; she had become the 
terror of Philadelphia, Salem, Norfolk and other 
coast towns, and the Major, to add insult to in¬ 
jury had made Gardiner’s Island in Long Island 
Sound his headquarters. Evidently pirating had 
appealed to the Major as a peaceful life beside the 
nagging tongue of Mrs. Bonnet. 

“But the poor, hen-pecked Major’s career did not 
last long. He fell in with Teach, otherwise known 
as Blackbeard, who pretended to be an ally and 
then ruthlessly robbed the amateur pirate, and, a 
little later, the Major was captured off the Caro¬ 
lina coast. He managed to escape in a canoe, but 
the reward of seventy pounds sterling offered for 
him, dead or alive, soon brought results. He 
was retaken, tried at Charleston and hanged. 
After the long-winded lecture and flowery-worded 
harangue that the presiding judge inflicted upon 

[ 186 ] 


THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS 

the poor condemned man the Major must have 
really welcomed hanging, and as he did not even 
plead the ‘ discomforts to be found in the married 
state’ as extenuating circumstances for his mis¬ 
deeds the execution was carried out at once.” 

“That would have been funny if the poor Major 
hadn’t been hanged,” said Jack. “But please tell 
us about Blackbeard. Was he a buccaneer?” 

“I’ll tell you of him presently,” replied Mr. 
Bickford, “but let us follow up the history of the 
buccaneers in its proper sequence first. As I have 
said, the buccaneers, as such, were practically de¬ 
stroyed when Morgan was made Lieutenant-Gov¬ 
ernor of Jamaica and waged a relentless war on 
his former associates. But to drive the corsairs 
from all their lairs in the Islands and about the 
Spanish Main was too big a job even for Morgan 
and the British king. To be sure they were 
driven from Jamaica, but the French still held 
Tortuga; there was a fortified island where they 
foregathered in Samana Bay in Santo Domingo, 
and on many a small outlying bay and islet they 
were comparatively safe. Then there were the 
Dutch Islands and the Virgins. These last were 
particular favorites of the buccaneers. They be¬ 
longed to France, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and 1 

[187] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


England and always they had been neutral ground 
for the freebooters. Here in these tiny out-of-the- 
way spots they could careen and refit, could 
carouse ashore and were safe from pursuit. The 
people looked upon them as friends; they spent 
money freely, and in return for the privileges 
and security afforded them, they never molested 
the inhabitants or their property. Many a buc¬ 
caneer has swung to his own yardarm for an 
insult to some Virgin Islander; many a man was 
pistoled by his captain for attempting to make 
free with Virgin Islander’s property, and in the 
Virgin Island ports—in St. Martin, St. Barts, 
St. John, Anegada and even in St. Thomas the 
remnants of the Brethren of the Main found snug 
lairs. 

“Many of the little islands were surrounded 
with dangerous reefs, where large ships could not 
enter, but whose secret channels were known to 
the buccaneers, and at almost all of them the cor¬ 
sairs erected forts and mounted guns. Montbars, 
the 4 Exterminator,’ as he was called, made his 
headquarters at Saint Bartholomew or St. Barts 
as it is more commonly called, others selected St. 
Martin, others Virgin Gorda and still more 
Anegada. All about here are names redolent of 

[ 188 ] 



The merchants bid for the loot brought ashore 














THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS 

the buccaneers, such as Norman Island, Dead 
Man’s Chest, Rum Island, Dutchman’s Cap, Bro¬ 
ken Jerusalem, while we also find such places as 
Sir Francis Drake’s Bay, Rendezvous Bay, Pri¬ 
vateers’ Bay, Gallows Bay, Doubloon Cove, etc. 

4 4 Most of the freebooters at Anegada were de¬ 
stroyed or driven off by expeditions sent from 
Jamaica by Morgan, for Anegada, like Virgin 
Gorda and Tortola, were British; hut the bucca¬ 
neers, who, you must remember, were now out-and- 
out pirates and had been declared so by England 
and France, were still comparatively safe in the 
Dutch and Danish isles. Indeed, the Danish of¬ 
ficials were quite openly in league with the pi¬ 
rates, and one governor of St. Thomas, Adolf 
Esmit—who, by the way, had been a buccaneer 
himself—was closely identified with a most no¬ 
torious pirate, Jean Hamlin. 

1 ‘ It was in 1682—about the time Sharp returned 
from his ‘dangerous voyage’—that Hamlin took 
as a prize the French ship, La Trompeuse, refitted 
her as a corsair and made a swift and successful 
piratical cruise through the Caribbean. Despite 
all protests of the British, Hamlin made his head¬ 
quarters at St. Thomas, where he was entertained 
by the governor—with whom, no doubt, he shared 

[189] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


his loot—and was afforded every courtesy and 
aid in fitting for another raid. For over a year 
Hamlin wrought havoc with British, French, Span¬ 
ish and Dutch shipping with equal impartiality, 
finally culminating in a wholesale capture of sev¬ 
enteen Dutch and British ships off the coast of 
Africa. 

44 Returning from this foray the pirates were 
loudly welcomed in St. Thomas; the merchants 
bid for the loot brought ashore, and Hamlin made 
merry with his good friend, the governor. But 
word of the corsair’s whereabouts had been car¬ 
ried to the neighboring British Islands. Governor 
Stapelton, of Antigua, despatched the H.M.S. 
Francis under stout old Captain Carlisle to St. 
Thomas, and three days after Hamlin’s trium¬ 
phant arrival at the island the British frigate 
sailed into the harbor. 

4 4 It was useless for the pirates to attempt to 
escape or to resist. Their ship was under the 
guns of the frigate scarcely a pistol shot away 
and, hastily scrambling into their boats and firing 
a few guns to 4 save their faces,’ the pirate captain 
and his men rowed for shore and sought protec¬ 
tion under the wings of the governor. Carlisle 
wasted no time in formalities and, despite the 

[190] 


THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS 

fact that he was in the waters of Denmark, 
promptly fired the pirate ship and blew her to bits. 

4 4 Of course Governor Esmit protested, claiming 
he had already seized the Trornpeuse in the name 
of the Danish king, but Captain Carlisle snapped 
his fingers—figuratively speaking—in the Danes’ 
faces, asked them what they were going to do 
about it and sailed away, well satisfied with a good 
deed well done. In the meantime, Esmit provided 
the pirates with a new vessel, but realizing that 
complications might arise, he suggested, in a 
friendly way, that henceforth some more isolated, 
out-of-the-way spot would be better adapted to 
piratical uses.” 


[ 191 ] 


CHAPTER XI 


KIDD, THE PIRATE WHO WASN'T A PIRATE 



HEW, I didn’t know they had pi¬ 
rates and buccaneers right up here 
around home!” exclaimed Fred. 


“Think of pirates in Long Island Sound!” 

“Of course there were,” declared Jack. “If 
there weren’t, how do you supose Captain Kidd 
could have buried his treasure up here!” 

“That’s so,” admitted his cousin. “But I al¬ 
ways thought he pirated down in the West Indies 
and just brought his treasure up here to hide it. 
Do you suppose he really did bury anything up 
this way, Uncle Henry!” 

Mr. Bickford laughed. “No, most of those 
stories are purely imagination,” he replied. 
“There isn’t a stretch of coast from Canada to 
South America that hasn’t got its tale of buried 
pirate treasure. If they all were true there’d be 
more valuables hidden by the pirates than all the 
corsairs ever took.” 


[ 192 ] 


KIDD, WHO WASN’T A PIRATE 

“Didn’t the buccaneers and pirates really bnry 
treasure, then?” asked Jack. “You said that 
Davis was supposed to have hidden his loot on 
the Galapagos Islands.” 

“Undoubtedly they did,” his father assured 
him. “The buccaneer leaders were far more 
thrifty than their men, and as there were no bank¬ 
ing facilities in the haunts of the pirates and no 
safe hiding places in the towns, I have not the 
least doubt that they did bury vast quantities of 
their booty. But, also, I have no doubt but that 
they eventually dug most of it up again. The 
majority of the buccaneer and pirate captains re¬ 
tired from the profession and settled down to a 
life of peace and plenty, as I have said, and there 
is no reason why they should have left their treas¬ 
ure hidden away. Of course those who were sud¬ 
denly killed might have had money and valuables 
secreted at the time of their death, but there were 
far greater fortunes hidden by the Spaniards than 
by the pirates. No doubt thousands and thou¬ 
sands of dollars ’ worth of money, plate and jewels 
were buried or hidden by the Dons to prevent 
their falling into the buccaneers’ hands and were 
never recovered. Very often the owners were 
killed or made prisoners and the secret of the 

[193] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


treasure died with them, or they died a natural 
death without digging up their buried riches. 

“Of course a great deal of hidden treasure has 
been found of which the world never hears. In 
most countries the government claims a large 
share of such finds and naturally the finder, hav¬ 
ing no desire to share his unexpected fortune, 
keeps mum when he discovers it. There are count¬ 
less cases of poor negroes and others in the West 
Indies suddenly becoming well-to-do without ap¬ 
parent reason. From time to time ancient coins 
appear at money changers and now and then we 
hear of treasure being found. But as a rule, the 
sums discovered are not large and are found by 
accident. 

“And with few exceptions there is every reason 
to believe that the valuables were hidden by their 
lawful owners or were lost or accidentally buried. 
For example, there was the man Gayney, who was 
drowned in Darien and who had three hundred 
pieces of eight on his person. Any one might find 
that and think it was buried treasure and never 
imagine it was the loot carried on a man’s back. 
At other times, boats loaded with valuables were 
wrecked or sunk and the treasure lost. Then, 
years later, it is found in the sand of the shore 

[194] 


KIDD, WHO WASN’T A PIRATE 

and the finders think of it as buried treasure. 
Moreover, wherever the pirates foregathered they 
naturally lost more or less money and if, by 
chance, some one picks up a few doubloons or 
pieces of eight in such places it always starts a 
tale of buried loot. At Anegada, St. John, St. 
Martin and, in fact, every other buccaneers’ old 
haunt, pieces of money are picked up from time to 
time and from these finds the tales of buried treas¬ 
ure have originated. In all the reliable histories 
and chronicles of the buccaneers and pirates I 
have never found any statement or hint that would 
lead one to think that it was customary for the 
corsairs to bury or hide their loot. All the tales 
of pirate captains burying treasure at dead of 
night and shooting the men who dug the holes are 
pure fiction with no fact on which to base them. 

“But there is no question that vast amounts of 
treasure lie at the bottom of the sea in the Carib¬ 
bean and elsewhere. Port Royal, Jamaica, slipped 
bodily into the sea with all its treasure—and there 
was undoubtedly vast sums in money and jewels 
in the place—and not a cent has ever been sal¬ 
vaged. Jamestown, in Nevis, was also submerged 
by an earthquake and all the riches it contained 
still lie at the bottom of the sea. Countless ships, 

[195] 



THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


attacked by the buccaneers, sank before the pi¬ 
rates could loot them and went to the bottom with 
their valuables, and many a buccaneers’ and pi¬ 
rates’ vessel was lost with thousands of dollars 
worth of treasure. The floor of the Caribbean is 
dotted with such wrecks. In some cases the men 
escaped and told of the loss, and the places where 
the ships went down are known, but in many cases 
the vessels with all their treasure and crew merely 
disappeared and no one knows their fate. It was 
thus with Grammont, a famous French buccaneer, 
who, in 1686, plundered and burnt Campeche and 
secured a vast treasure. But he and his ship were 
never heard from and beyond a doubt the immense 
fortune in gold, silver and precious stones lies 
somewhere among the rotted timbers of his ship 
at the bottom of the Caribbean.” 

“Well, it doesn’t sound as if treasure hunting 
would be very profitable,” remarked Jack. 

“Far more money has been spent in searching 
for treasure than ever was lost,” declared Mr. 
Bickford. ‘ 4 There was the Peruvian treasure sup¬ 
posed to have been hidden on Cocos Island—a vast 
fortune in church plate, holy vessels and coin 
which was taken away to prevent it falling into 
the hands of the enemy. Innumerable expeditions 

[196] 


KIDD, WHO WASN’T A PIRATE 

have set out to find it but none have succeeded, 
although many have claimed to possess maps of 
the spot. But during the years that have passed, 
the island has altered, there have been landslides, 
and, if we are to believe the most reliable reports, 
the treasure lies buried under thousands of tons 
of rock and earth that has fallen from the moun¬ 
tainside. And as far as known the treasures that 
were lost when the Dons hurriedly sent it away 
from Old Panama to prevent it falling into Mor¬ 
gan’s hands has never been found. Some day 
some one may stumble upon it, but the chances are 
that it will remain lost to the world forever.” 

1 ‘Then all these stories about Captain Kidd’s 
treasure are just yarns,” said Fred regretfully. 
“And you said he wasn’t even a pirate.” 

“If Captain Kidd had possessed one-hundredth 
of the treasure he is supposed to have buried he 
would have been the most successful pirate who 
ever lived,” declared Mr. Bickford. “There is 
nothing to prove that Captain Kidd ever had any 
considerable treasure and the little he had was se¬ 
creted on Gardiner’s Island and recovered by the 
men who employed Kidd and for whom it was in¬ 
tended. No, your old hero Kidd was not a pirate 
nor a buccaneer. On the contrary, he was a much 

[ 197 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


maligned man, a weak, rather cowardly chap, who 
was the tool of unscrupulous adventurers and paid 
the penalty for crimes that never were proved 
against him. And yet, strangely enough, he be¬ 
came noted as the most famous of all pirates and 
his name is a household word and the epitome of 
piracy. It is one of the most astounding examples 
of unwarranted fame and misconception on record, 
and so firmly fixed in the mind of the public is the 
erroneous idea that Kidd was the most notorious 
of pirates that not one person in a thousand will 
listen to reason or pay the least heed to docu¬ 
mentary evidence or historical records proving 
he was no pirate at all. 

“It is the hardest thing in the world to down 
tradition and oddly enough the more false tradi¬ 
tion is the harder it seems to be to correct it. 
Despite everything, Kidd will, no doubt, continue 
to remain the favorite pirate of romance and 
story, and to the end of time Kidd’s treasure will 
still, in imagination, be buried here, there and 
everywhere along the coasts. 

“We scarcely ever hear of ‘Blackbeard’s treas¬ 
ure,’ of ‘Morgan’s treasure’ or of ‘Bonnet’s 
treasure,’ although each and every one of those 
rascals was a pirate and took vast sums and may 

[ 198 ] 


KIDD, WHO WASN’T A PIRATE 

have buried their loot for all we know. But always 
it is Kidd’s treasure, although the poor fellow 
never had any to bury. 

“As a matter of fact, Captain William Kidd 
was a respectable and honest sea captain, a native 
of Greenock, and was so highly respected for his 
integrity that he was given a commission to sup¬ 
press piracy by King William the Third of Eng¬ 
land. The commission was addressed to ‘our 
trusty and well-beloved Captain William Kidd of 
the ship Adventure, galley’ and was dated 1695. 
The royal warrant went on to authorize Kidd to 
destroy and hunt down ‘divers wicked and ill- 
disposed persons who were committing many and 
great pyraces to the great danger and hurt of our 
loving subjects.’ 

“Kidd, being impecunious, was backed by sev¬ 
eral rich and influential persons in Massachusetts 
and New York, among them Lord Belmont, the 
governor of Barbados, who saw in the capture 
of pirates and the taking of their ill-gotten loot 
a chance for large profits. 

“The Adventure set forth on her mission in 
May, 1696, with a crew of one hundred and fifty- 
five men and cruised here, there and everywhere 
searching for piratical prey. Unfortunately pi- 

[199] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


rates seemed very scarce, Kidd’s crew became 
mutinous and clamored for excitement, and tlie 
next thing that was known, word came to the au¬ 
thorities that the Adventure had attacked and 
taken a Moorish ship called the Queda Merchant. 
Furthermore, reports had it that Kidd had taken 
possession of the prize, had transferred his men, 
guns and other possessions to the Queda and, hav¬ 
ing sunk the Adventure , had gone a-pirating in the 
Moorish ship. At once he was branded as a pirate 
and a price put upon his head. All unwittingly 
Kidd sailed into Santo Domingo in his prize and 
there learned that he was looked upon as a pirate 
and was wanted by the authorities. 

“Without hesitation, Kidd purchased a sloop, 
left the Queda in port and sailed as fast as pos¬ 
sible to Boston to explain matters. He was, of 
course, rather doubtful of his reception and be¬ 
fore throwing himself on the mercies of the au¬ 
thorities he secreted the few valuables he had on 
Gardiner’s Island, sent word to his sponsors, and 
after a consultation in which they agreed to stand 
by him and clear him of the charge of piracy, he 
gave himself up. 

“Kidd’s explanation was frank and simple. He 
claimed his crew, a gang of thugs and cut-throats, 

[ 200 ] 


KIDD, WHO WASN’T A PIRATE 

had mutinied, had made him prisoner and of their 
own volition had captured the prize, and that 
the Adventure, being rendered unseaworthy in the 
action, had been abandoned, and the men and their 
belongings transferred to the Moorish ship. He 
also testified that his men had threatened to shoot 
him if he did not accede to their wishes and that 
during the time of the capture of the ship he 
had been locked in his cabin. He was questioned 
as to what became of the valuables, supposedly 
worth seventy thousand pounds sterling, which 
were on the Queda and in reply swore that the 
men had taken it and made away with it. In the 
end, to make a long story short, the trial sim¬ 
mered down to a charge against the unfortunate 
Captain of having killed a gunner named Moore, 
who was a member of the Adventure’s crew. Kidd 
frankly admitted he had killed the fellow by strik¬ 
ing him over the head with a bucket, as Moore had 
been mutinous and had led the men in their scheme 
to turn pirates. Throughout these preliminary 
hearings, Kidd’s wealthy sponsors had deserted 
him. They saw that they would become involved; 
and poor Kidd found himself without friends or 
money and even deprived of the rights to produce 
documentary evidence of his statements. Heav- 

[ 201 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


ily manacled, lie was sent to England and tried 
on the charge of piracy and murder at Old Bailey 
in May, 1701. 

“The trial was a rank travesty of justice from 
the beginning. Papers and letters favorable to 
Kidd were refused as evidence; his erstwhile 
friends perjured themselves to save their own 
names; counsel was denied him and only his faith¬ 
ful wife stood by him. In addition to Kidd, nine 
of his crew were also charged with piracy, these 
being the men who had remained faithful to their 
captain, and although all testified in Kidd’s behalf 
and substantiated his story, Kidd and six of the 
men were condemned to be hanged in chains. At 
Execution Dock the maligned, helpless captain and 
his fellows were strung up without mercy on May 
23rd, and their dead bodies suspended in chains 
along the river side, where, for years, the bones 
swayed and rattled in the winds as a grim warn¬ 
ing to all pirates. 

“But the execution was a bungling and awful 
thing. Kidd, standing with the noose about his 
neck, was pestered, browbeaten and cajoled to 
confess, but stoutly maintained his innocence. As 
he was swung off, the rope broke and the poor, tor¬ 
tured, groaning man was again hoisted to the scaf- 

,[ 202 ] 


KIDD, WHO WASN’T A PIRATE 

fold where, despite his suffering, a minister and 
others exhorted him to confess his crimes and re¬ 
veal the hiding places of his treasure. But be¬ 
tween pitiful groans and pleas for a speedy death, 
Kidd still maintained that he had no treasure and 
had told only the truth. Finally, despairing of 
wringing a confession from one who had nothing 
to confess, he was hanged until dead. His entire 
estate, consisting of less than seven thousand 
pounds, was confiscated and presented to the 
Greenwich Hospital, where, by all that was right 
and just, it should have proved a curse rather than 
a blessing. 

“No one ever knew what became of the Queda 
or her treasure, but, no doubt, as Kidd claimed, 
she was scuttled by the mutinous crew and the 
loot divided between them was scattered to the 
four winds. Upon that slender mystery of the 
disappearance of the valuables of the Queda were 
built all the tales of Captain Kidd’s buried treas¬ 
ure, and upon the farce of a trial and the convic¬ 
tion of the unfortunate seaman for killing a mu¬ 
tinous gunner in self-defense, was reared the un¬ 
dying fame of Captain Kidd.” 

“Gee, that was a shame!” declared Jack. “I 
feel really sorry for poor old Captain Kidd. 

[203] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


Think of Morgan being knighted and honored 
after all he did and Kidd being hung for noth¬ 
ing. ’ ’ 

“ Yon must bear in mind that times had changed 
since Morgan’s day,” said Mr. Bickford. “The 
romantic, picturesque buccaneers were a thing of 
the past, and England and her colonies were wag¬ 
ing a relentless war on pirates. In a way we must 
not be too hard on the authorities for their treat¬ 
ment of Kidd. They were intent on discouraging 
piracy and doubtless felt that, even if there was a 
question of Kidd’s guilt, his death would be a 
wholesome warning to any seamen who felt in¬ 
clined to turn pirates. But it certainly is a won¬ 
derful example of the irony of fate to think of 
Kidd winning undying fame as a bold and ruth¬ 
less pirate when—even if he were guilty—he 
could not have been charged with taking more 
than one ship, while others, who destroyed hun¬ 
dreds and ravaged the seas for years, have been 
totally forgotten. There was not even anything 
romantic, daring or appealing to the imagination 
in Kidd’s career. In contrast, consider the most 
romantic corsair who ever pirated in the Carib¬ 
bean, a veritable knight errant of the seas, a scion 

[ 204 ] 


KIDD, WHO WASN’T A PIE ATE 

of royalty, known as Prince Rupert of the Rhine.” 

“Why, I never ever heard of him!” exclaimed 
Fred. “What did he do?” 

“Of course you never heard of him,” said Mr. 
Bickford. “That is why I mentioned him, just 
as an example of how a man who should have been 
famous remains unknown and forgotten and a 
man like Kidd, with no claim to fame, lives on 
forever. Prince Rupert was a most romantic and 
fascinating character, a real Don Quixote, ever 
getting into one scrape after another, living a 
series of incredible adventures that would have 
put the famous D’Artagnan to shame; a dashing, 
impetuous gallant young prince who, according 
to historians, was i very sparkish in his dress’ and 
Tike a perpetual motion.’ Young, handsome, a 
dashing cavalier, as ready with his sword as with 
his purse, he championed every romantic or hope¬ 
less cause, threw himself into any wild scheme or 
fray where a lady was concerned or some one was 
in distress, and was no sooner out of one trouble 
than he was head over heels into another. But he 
was ever resourceful, ever light hearted and ever 
a great favorite with the ladies. In his youth, he 
was cast into prison in Linz, but, despite his 

[205] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


plight, he managed to learn drawing, made love 
to the governor’s daughter and so won her heart 
that his escape was made easy. 

“ Later, he decided that the land held too few 
opportunities for his restless, romantic spirit, 
and with a handful of choice companions he took 
to sea in command of a fleet of three ships. These 
were the Swallow, his own vessel, the Defiance, 
under command of his brother, Prince Maurice, 
and the Honest Seaman . 

“Gay with pennants and bunting, the little 
argosy set sail from Ireland in 1648, and with the 
gallant young Prince, dressed in his gayest silks, 
satins and laces, upon the high poop of the Swal¬ 
low, the three tiny vessels set off on their voyage 
to do their bit towards championing the cause of 
their king in the far-off Caribbean. 

“For five years they sailed. Battling right 
nobly with the Dons, escaping annihilation a thou¬ 
sand times, beset by tempest and storm and meet¬ 
ing enough adventures at every turn to satisfy 
even the Prince’s ardent soul. A book might be 
written on the romantic, harebrained, reckless 
deeds performed by that hot-blooded young scion 
of royalty, but in the end, in a terrific hurricane, 
Prince Rupert’s fleet was driven on the treach- 

[206] 


KIDD, WHO WASN’T A PIKATE 

erous reefs off Anegada. Prince Maurice in the 
Defiance was lost, the Honest Seaman was bat¬ 
tered to pieces and her few survivors reached the 
low, desolate land more dead than alive, but the 
Sivallow, by chance or Providence, managed to 
escape by driving through a narrow entrance in 
the jagged reef to the sheltered water within. 
Battered and leaking, badly crippled, the poor 
Swalloiv was far from seaworthy when the storm 
was over and the gay Prince, saddened and sor¬ 
rowful at the loss of his brother and his men, 
sailed dolefully for England. He was a changed 
man thereafter and settled down to a very quiet 
life in a little house at Spring Gardens. All his 
brave deeds were forgotten, even his name passed 
into oblivion and in 1682 he died, almost unknown, 
in his English home. ’ ’ 


[ 207 ] 


CHAPTER XII 


PICTURESQUE PIRATES 

“ T ’D like to read all about him,” said Jack. 

i “I’ll bet be bad an exciting life. I’ll never 
hear of Captain Kidd without thinking of 
Prince Rupert by contrast.” 

“You’ll find the whole story in this book,” said 
his father. “But you’ll always find these old vol¬ 
umes dry reading in a way. They pass over the 
most exciting events very casually, as if they were 
matters of course, but you’ll be amused at the 
quaint language and naive remarks.” 

“Weren’t there any other old buccaneers who 
were as romantic and gallant as Prince Rupert 1” 
asked Fred. 

“He was not strictly a buccaneer,” his uncle 
corrected him. “Nor was he really a pirate. His 
deeds took place before the buccaneers were really 
organized, and ostensibly he was more of a priva¬ 
teer than a pirate. In a way he was in the same 
category as Drake and Hawkins, and the same is 
true of another most romantic figure who ravaged 

[ 208 ] 


PICTURESQUE PIRATES 

the Caribbean and was a thorn in the side of the 
Spaniards. Perhaps he should not be included 
among stories of buccaneers, but he was such a 
picturesque figure that a brief account of him 
may interest you boys.” 

i ‘ Yes, do tell us about him, ’ ’ cried Jack. ‘ 1 Even 
if he w T asn’t really a buccaneer.” 

“He was also a member of the British nobility,” 
continued Mr. Bickford. “The Earl of Cumber¬ 
land, a graduate of Oxford with the degree of 
M.A., a wealthy peer, romantic, picturesque, a 
courtier, a noted gambler and a man of tremendous 
personal strength and courage. In his youth he 
had taken part in the attack on the Spanish 
Armada under Drake and had been made a 
Knight of the Garter and was a great favorite 
with Queen Elizabeth. In fact, through some 
favor, the queen had presented the Earl with one 
of her gloves—a claret-colored, diamond-studded 
thing which the dashing adventurer invariably 
wore tucked through the band of his broad- 
brimmed plumed hat. It became his crest, his 
badge, and far and wide, to friends and enemies 
alike, he became famed as ‘the man with the glove 
in his hat.’ 

“Like Prince Rupert, Lord Cumberland found 

[209] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

too few opportunities for his love of adventure 
ashore and so turned to the sea and the Indies for 
excitement. No doubt he found it in plenty, for 
he became a terror to the Dons, took many prizes, 
accumulated vast wealth and seemed to bear a 
charmed life. Again and again he returned to 
England to settle down, but ever the life of the 
sea rover appealed too strongly to him, and don¬ 
ning his hat with its jeweled glove, he would up 
and away to some new daredevil adventure. 

Finally, in March, 1598, he set sail from 
Plymouth harbor with twenty ships, all his own, 
for the greatest attack on the Dons in the Carib¬ 
bean that had ever been organized. His flagship 
bore the curious name of The Scourge of Malice, 
and the Earl’s bold scheme was to attack the sup¬ 
posedly impregnable port of San Juan, Puerto 
Rico. Drake and Hawkins had tried it, but had 
been driven off, and the reckless devil-may-care 
‘man with the glove in his hat’ saw, in a raid on 
Puerto Rico a fine chance for adventure such as 
his heart craved. 

“Having captured a few prizes in mid-ocean, the 
fleet arrived at Dominica in May, and the Earl al¬ 
lowed his men shore liberty and a good rest before 
continuing on his daredevil foray. Being totally 

[ 210 ] 


PICTURESQUE PIRATES 

unexpected by the Dons, the Earl’s ship ap¬ 
proached unseen at dead of night, and six hundred 
men were silently landed about two miles to the 
east of Morro Castle. Dividing his force into two 
parties and following the road, Cumberland led 
his men close to the city walls and at break of 
day rushed the sleepy sentries and the gates. 
Shouting and yelling, brandishing cutlasses, firing 
pistols, the wild horde of Englishmen appeared 
to the frightened, surprised Spaniards like fiends 
suddenly sprung from the earth. Terrorized, they 
retreated to the inmost fastnesses of the town be¬ 
fore they rallied and, realizing the dreaded Brit¬ 
ish were upon them, turned to face their foes. 
But it was too late. The English were in the 
streets, and although the Dons fought manfully 
and many fell on both sides, the Earl’s men were 
victorious, and within two hours the city was in 
their hands. 

And mightily well pleased was My Lord as, with 
his own men in charge of the walls and grim old 
fortress, he strutted about the city appraising the 
valuables, the rich merchandise, the ships in the 
harbor, which were his to pick and choose from. 
Never before had San Juan fallen to an enemy, 
and the Earl had every reason to be filled with 

[ 211 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

pride at his great deed. The city was rich and 
prosperous, the Morro was one of the strongest 
fortifications in the New World, and the ‘man 
with the glove in his hat’ felt that he had mightily 
added to England’s power by securing this strong¬ 
hold as a fortified base from which to harass 
the hated Dons. But he had counted without an 
enemy that lurked unseen and unsuspected near 
at hand. He had subdued the Dons, but there was 
another foe ready to attack him that no bravery, 
no arms could subdue. The dreaded Yellow Fever 
crept stealthily among the British, and ere Cum¬ 
berland realized what had occurred his men were 
dying by scores daily. Here was an enemy he 
could not fight, a foe invisible and more deadly 
than the Spaniards, and in almost no time Cum¬ 
berland’s force w^as more than half destroyed. 
Filled with terror at this dread death stalking 
among his men, realizing that to remain meant 
destruction for all, the Earl hurriedly embarked 
the few remaining Englishmen aboard his ships, 
and beaten, discouraged and disheartened, sailed 
away from the town he had so gloriously won. He 
had not gone empty-handed, however. The city 
had been thoroughly pillaged, much of it had been 
burnt, the ships in the harbor had been destroyed 

[ 212 ] 


PICTURESQUE PIRATES 

and Cumberland’s fortune had been increased tre¬ 
mendously. But he had had enough of the cor¬ 
sair’s life. He settled down to pass the remaining 
years of his life in peace; but we may feel sure 
that often, as he glanced at the flopping, white- 
plumed hat with its little red glove, he breathed a 
sigh of regret that his days of a sea rover were 
over; that never again would he leap over a gal¬ 
leon’s side with cutlass in one hand and pistol in 
the other, while men shouted for St. George and 
San Iago and blood flowed and cannons roared 
and blade clashed on blade and pistols flashed as 
Don and Briton battled.” 

4 ‘ Seems to me those old fellows were a lot more 
picturesque than the real buccaneers,” said Fred. 
“Why don’t people write more stories about them, 
Dad? I never read of Prince Rupert or the Earl 
of Cumberland in any story; but books are full 
of Morgan and those fellows.” 

“Probably because less is known about them,” 
replied his father. “And partly, too, as they lived 
and fought before the West Indies and the Span¬ 
ish Main became as well known as in Morgan’s 
day. You must remember that we hear very little 
of L’Ollonois, Brasiliano, Portugues, or the earlier 
buccaneers. New England, you know, was not 

[213] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


settled until 1638, and most of the famous buc¬ 
caneers were those whose deeds were committed 
after the American colonies were trading ex¬ 
tensively with the West Indies. Morgan, you re¬ 
member, sent to merchants of New England for 
help in fitting out his fleet, and Davis and his fel¬ 
lows sailed for the South Sea from the Chesa¬ 
peake. To the inhabitants of New England and 
Virginia the buccaneers seemed comparative 
neighbors, and hence the tales of their careers 
came fresh and vividly to them, whereas it took 
weeks or months for stories to reach England. 

“But don’t imagine that it was only the older 
pirates who were picturesque. Perhaps the most 
picturesque and fascinatingly wicked pirate who 
ever lived—although he hadn’t a redeeming fea¬ 
ture—was among the last of the really famous cor¬ 
sairs of the Caribbean. If ever there was a dime- 
novel, story-book pirate it was he—Blackbeard.” 

“Hurrah! I was hoping you’d tell us about 
him!” cried Jack. “Was he really as bad as the 
stories make out?” 

“A great deal worse,” Mr. Bickford assured 
him. “No imagination could invent anything to 
equal Blackbeard’s innate deviltry. 

“He combined all the worst traits of every buc- 

[214] 




PICTURESQUE PIRATES 

caneer and pirate who ever lived. He was a 
double-dyed, out-and-out rascal; a ruffian, a thug 
and a brutal, inhuman bully. The most despicable 
buccaneer who ever raided a Spanish town or 
boarded a galleon would have despised him, for he 
held no shred of honor or principle; he cheated 
his friends and his own men and was a veritable 
monster in human form. Nevertheless, it cannot 
be denied that he was courageous; that he never 
shirked danger; that he never asked or expected 
his men to go where he would not lead, and, more¬ 
over, he was a most striking and picturesque 
rascal.’’ 

“I saw somewhere that he had a castle in St. 
Thomas,” said Fred, as Mr. Bickford paused to 
refresh his memory with data from a book on the 
table. “Did he live there, Uncle Henry?” 

“Not as far as known,” replied Mr. Bickford. 
“It is true that there is an ancient tower-like 
building above the town of Charlotte Amalia at 
St. Thomas, and which is called ‘Blackbeard’s 
Castle,’ and that the natives claim it was once the 
home of the noted pirate. But there is also a 
similar edifice known as ‘Bluebeard’s Castle’ on 
a neighboring hilltop. It’s just about as probable 
that old Bluebeard lived in one as that Blackbeard 

[ 215 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

dwelt in the other. No doubt Blackbeard visited 
St. Thomas, but there is not a bit of historical 
data to prove he ever lived there. It’s a shame 
to destroy the island’s claim to association with 
the notorious old pirate, but as a matter of record 
his so-called castle was built by Charles Baggaert, 
a Dane, about 1660. To be sure, that would not 
have prevented it from being used by Blackbeard, 
for he lived at a much later date, but Blackbeard’s 
favorite haunts were the Bahamas and the coasts 
of the Carolinas, and he would have had no earthly 
reason for stopping ashore at St. Thomas. How¬ 
ever, whatever the truth of his ‘castle’ may be, 
the rest of Blackboard’s life story is well known 
and is substantiated by historical records. 

“ Blackbeard’s real name was Edward Teach 
and, like many another pirate and sea rover, he 
was a native of Bristol, England. Had Teach 
been born a few years earlier no doubt he would 
have become a famous buccaneer and a dangerous 
rival of Morgan and his fellows, but Master Teach 
came into the w r orld after buccaneering as a pro¬ 
fession had fallen into disrepute. Hence it fell to 
his lot to become an ordinary seaman on honest 
merchant ships, which was far from satisfactory 
to the ambitions of young Teach. As a result, 

[ 216 ] 


PICTURESQUE PIRATES 

when his ship dropped anchor in Jamaica, one day 
in 1716, Teach promptly deserted and, falling in 
with a number of questionable characters, joined 
their company in a pirating venture. 

“Evidently the embryo pirate believed thor¬ 
oughly in the old adage that ‘what’s worth doing 
at all is worth doing well,’ and he threw himself 
heart and soul into his chosen profession. Ef¬ 
ficiency seemed to be his middle name, to use a 
slang expression, and within two years from the 
time he deserted the merchant service he had risen 
to the very highest pinnacle as a pirate chieftain. 
In fact, I might go further and, without exaggera¬ 
tion or question, say that within that short period 
Teach had become the world’s greatest pirate, a 
pirate never equaled or excelled for pure devil¬ 
ish bloodthirstiness and villainy, and, if the facts 
were known, most of the lurid stories and the ro¬ 
mances of piracy have been founded on the deeds 
of Blackbeard. Even the popular conception of 
much-maligned Kidd is based on Blackbeard, for 
he was the culmination of piratical scoundrelism, 
the ideal pirate of blood-and-thunder fiction, the 
most highly depraved cutthroat who ever walked 
a ship’s decks. 

“And he was a thorough believer in keeping up 

[ 217 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


his reputation and well knew the effect of appear¬ 
ances upon the public. Naturally a most repul¬ 
sive-looking man,—a huge, long-armed, broad- 
shouldered, brutal creature,—he added to his 
ugliness by cultivating an enormous coal-black 
beard and allowing his hair to grow until it cov¬ 
ered his shoulders like a mane. His beard he 
braided into innumerable little pigtails, twisting 
in bits of bright-hued ribbons, and when attacking 
a prize or boarding a ship lie added to his wild 
and savage aspect by tucking burning slow 
matches into the mass of black hair and beard that 
framed his villainous, leering face. 

“But his actual deeds would have been sufficient 
to inspire horror and dread without the theatrical 
accessories of black whiskers and slow matches. 
He was a past master in the art of devilish cruelty; 
he gave no quarter; he took ships of any nation 
that happened to come his way, and when prizes 
were scarce he varied the monotony of life by 
robbing and murdering his own men and his fellow 
pirates. Had Teach drifted into other and more 
peaceful walks of life he might have become a 
great inventor, for he had an inordinate bump of 
curiosity and was forever carrying out experi¬ 
ments which, while most interesting to him, were 

[ 218 ] 


PICTURESQUE PIRATES 

most unpleasant to others. Once he marooned 
seventeen of his crew upon a tiny barren islet, to 
learn, so he declared, how long human beings could 
survive without food or water; but unfortunately 
for his curiosity, and most opportunely for the 
marooned subjects of his test, Major Stede Bon¬ 
net—of whom I have already told you—chanced 
to sail that way and rescued the unfortunate sev¬ 
enteen from their desert isle. 

“He possessed a weird and grewsome sense of 
humor too, and we may be very sure that life was 
never dull or monotonous aboard his ship. On 
one occasion, when for days no prize had been 
sighted and the pirate craft rolled with slatting 
sails upon an oily sea under the blazing tropic 
sun, Teach, hatless and shoeless, appeared on 
deck and announced with a roar and an oath that 
he had devised a scheme for killing time and amus¬ 
ing themselves. It was, indeed, a novel idea, and 
one quite in keeping with Blackbeard’s character, 
for it was nothing less than, to quote his words, 
Ho make a little hell of our own and see who is 
best fitted for our hereafter. ’ It was useless for 
the men to protest, for any artificial inferno that 
Teach could devise would, they knew, be mild in 
comparison to that which they would bring upon 

[219] 



THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


themselves should they refuse to follow out their 
captain’s wishes. 

Urging the fellows into the hold by no gentle 
means, Teach leaped in with them, and then, set¬ 
ting fire to several pots of brimstone, pitch and 
other inflammable things, the pirate chief drew 
the hatches shut. There in the close, unventilated 
hold they sat upon the ballast, choking, coughing, 
suffocating in the noxious fumes until, half- 
roasted, nauseated, almost asphyxiated, the men 
could endure no longer and, rushing to the hatch, 
threw it open and crawled on deck. Not until all 
the others had gained the open air did Black- 
beard emerge triumphant, and throughout his life 
he was never tired of boasting of his endurance, 
and took the greatest pride in recalling that his 
men declared that, when he came forth, he had 
looked like a half-hanged man. 

In fact, this remark by a thoughtless member of 
his crew set Teach to thinking and, his curiosity 
being aroused, he suggested that another and even 
more interesting test should be made to see who 
could come the nearest to being hung without dy¬ 
ing. But at this his men drew the line; they had 
no desire to choke and kick while dangling with a 
noose about their necks, even to satisfy their cap- 

[ 220 ] 


PICTURESQUE PIRATES 

tain’s curiosity. In vain Teach pointed out that 
sooner or later they’d he hung, most probably, and 
that they might as well become accustomed to the 
sensation at once. Without avail he argued that 
by so doing they might become so inured to hang¬ 
ing that it would hold no terrors for them. One 
and all refused point-blank, and Teach, realizing 
that to be suspended from his yardarm alone 
would prove nothing and that his men might try 
his endurance a bit too far, and also realizing 
that he could not string up his entire crew by 
himself, reluctantly gave up the idea and, cursing 
the men fluently as cowards, busied his mind think¬ 
ing up other amusements. 

“Such pleasantries were of almost daily occur¬ 
rence, and his crew and his friends thought them¬ 
selves lucky indeed if they got off with nothing 
more serious than his brimstone test. One night, 
for example, he was entertaining two cronies, one 
his sailing master and the other the pilot who 
had just brought the ship into port. All were 
in the best of spirits, smoking, drinking, spin¬ 
ning yarns of the sea in the tiny, stuffy cabin, 
when Blackbeard, without the least warning, sud¬ 
denly whipped out a brace of pistols, cocked them, 
crossed his hands, and before his amazed guests 

[ 221 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


knew what he was about, he blew out the candle 
and fired his weapons in the direction of the as¬ 
tounded and terrified men. The sailing master 
was shot through the knee—although, as you will 
learn later, it was a most fortunate thing for him 
—and lamed for life, and indignantly the pilot and 
sailing master demanded of Teach what he meant 
by such behavior. 

“Having cursed them fluently for several min¬ 
utes, Blackbeard roared with boisterous laughter, 
and replied good-naturedly that ‘if I didn’t kill 
one of you now and then you’d forget who I was.’ 

“And yet, despite his brutality, his murderous 
ways, his utter depravity, Teach apparently was a 
great favorite with the ladies. At any rate, he was 
married fourteen times—although history fails to 
mention divorces—his last wife being, according 
to those who knew, ‘a beautiful young creature of 
sixteen.’ It certainly would be interesting to 
know by what manner of courtship the villainous 
old wretch could win the hearts of innocent young 
girls, but perchance in his love-making he was as 
gentle and as ardent as he was brutal and devilish 
in his piracy. 

“For two years Teach ravaged the Caribbean 

[ 222 ] 



PICTURESQUE PIRATES 

and the coast of the Atlantic states, sailing as far 
north as Massachusetts and the coast of Maine, 
and making his headquarters either in the Ba¬ 
hamas or in the waters of Pamlico Sound, North 
Carolina. Indeed, there was more than good rea¬ 
son to suspect that the governor of Carolina was 
hand and glove with Teach, and that the pirate 
paid a goodly tribute to the executive in return 
for freedom from molestation while in the Caro¬ 
lina waters. 

“But at last Blackbeard’s activities became too 
great to be borne longer by the long-suffering 
mariners and merchants of the colonies. They 
rose and demanded his apprehension or destruc¬ 
tion, and the Governor of Virginia thereupon of¬ 
fered a reward of one hundred pounds sterling 
‘for one Edward Teach, otherwise known as 
Blackbeard, pirate,’ dead or alive, and forty 
pounds for each and every other pirate. One hun¬ 
dred pounds in those days was a fortune, and 
Teach, reading a copy of the proclamation, swelled 
with pride to think that his fame and notoriety 
were such as to bring forth such an offer. But he 
had no fear whatever of any one claiming it. His 
mere name was enough to drive every one scurry- 

[ 223 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

ing to safety, he had perfect confidence in his abil¬ 
ity to look out for himself, and he took the whole 
matter as a bit of a joke. 

“Indeed, he thought so lightly of it that he 
boldly sailed into Pamlico Sound, came to anchor 
in a little cove at Ocracoke Inlet, and there fell in 
with an old friend, a merchant skipper, with whom 
he spent the night drinking and swapping yarns 
of old days before Teach had gone a-pirating.” 



[ 224 ] 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE END OF BLACKBEARD 

“ A S is often the ease, Teach, just when he 
L _ik felt himself safest, was in the most im- 
minent peril. The munificent reward 
offered for his death or capture had proved a 
tempting bait, and a brave young naval officer, 
Lieutenant Maynard of H.M.S. Pearl, had made 
up his mind to pocket that one hundred pounds 
and several of the forty pound rewards as well. 
Gathering together a few brave and tried friends 
and old shipmates, Maynard manned a small sloop, 
loaded it with a plentiful supply of arms and am¬ 
munition and, having learned of Blackboard’s 
whereabouts, set sail for Ocracoke. Long before 
the gallant lieutenant came within sight of the 
pirates’ lair, however, Teach had word of his com- 
ing, but this only amused the black-whiskered 
corsair. It would serve to enliven a dull day, and 
he and his men looked forward with pleasurable 
anticipation to Maynard’s arrival. 

[ 225 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


“But the villainous pirate little knew the man¬ 
ner of man who was coming to attack him. As the 
day dawned, those on the pirate ship saw the 
sloop approaching, and, realizing that his situation 
in the exposed anchorage was not well adapted to 
defensive tactics, Blackbeard cut his cable, hoisted 
the black flag and allowed his vessel to drift upon 
the mudflats with the tide. This was a tactful 
move, for Maynard’s craft drew too much water 
to come to grips with the pirate, and as neither 
vessel carried cannon, the battle would have to be 
a hand-to-hand combat, and the pirates would 
have every advantage, as their enemies would be 
compelled to board them. But the lieutenant had 
no intention of giving the pirates any advantage 
he could avoid. He was out to get Blackbeard, 
dead or alive, and he meant to succeed. Throw¬ 
ing over his ballast, together with anchors, fit¬ 
tings, water casks and spare spars, Maynard 
lightened his sloop until she could pass over the 
flats, and then, hoisting sail, he bore down upon 
the stranded pirate craft. 

Blackbeard, with lighted fuses glowing in his 
hair and beard, drawn cutlass and pistols in hand, 
leaped upon the rail, ‘hailed him in a rude manner 
and cursed most horribly, ’ as the old accounts tell 

[ 226 ] 


THE END OF BLACKBEABD 


us, and then, in a bit of bravado, raised a glass of 
grog and in full view of his enemies drank to ‘the 
damnation of the attackers.’ 

“Even with the lightened sloop, Maynard found, 
however, that he could not come to grips with 
Teach’s vessel, and so, piling his men into small 
boats, the lieutenant headed for the stranded 
pirate, intending to board her. But long before 
they could gain the vessel’s sides they were met 
with such a galling musketry fire that they were 
compelled to retreat with twenty-nine men killed 
and wounded. 

“This was, indeed, a wretched beginning, but 
Maynard was a resourceful man and, ordering his 
men below decks, so that only himself and the 
helmsman remained in sight, he allowed his sails 
to flap and swing as though he had no men able 
to handle the sloop and with the slowly rising 
tide crept constantly closer to the pirates. 

‘ ‘ Thinking they had won the day and that May¬ 
nard’s men were utterly done for, Teach and his 
crew roared out boisterous songs and taunts and 
prepared to leap onto the sloop’s decks and 
butcher the two remaining men and any wounded 
who might be lying about. A moment later the 
two vessels touched. With a terrible oath and a 

[ 227 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

savage yell, Blackbeard sprang through the smoke 
to the sloop’s decks with his shouting crew at his 
heels, and with swirling, gleaming cutlasses they 
rushed towards Maynard and his helmsman. 
Then, up from their hiding place in the hold, 
poured the sloop’s crew, and instantly the battle 
raged fast and furiously. The pirates, surprised, 
gave back a bit, the lieutenant’s men fought like 
furies, and back and forth across the bloody decks 
the battle surged. Teach had singled out May¬ 
nard and, whipping out pistols, both fired at the 
same instant. Blackbeard’s shot missed, but the 
bullet from the lieutenant’s pistol found its mark 
in the pirate’s face. With blood streaming from 
the wound and dripping from the braided ends of 
his long beard, eyes blazing with fury, and yelling 
with anger and pain, the pirate threw aside his 
useless pistol and leaped at the lieutenant with 
swinging cutlass. But Maynard was a splendid 
swordsman. As Blackbeard, cursing and shouting 
that he would hack the other’s heart from his 
body, leaped forward, the officer’s sword met his, 
steel clanged on steel, and the pirate found him¬ 
self balked, held off, driven back. 

4 ‘It was a terrible duel,—the struggle of enor¬ 
mous brute strength against skill,—and with ter- 

[ 228 ] 


THE END OF BLACKBEAKD 


rific slashing blows and savage lunges Blackbeard 
strove to break down the other’s guard, to disarm 
him or to snap his blade. Here and there across 
the decks they fought and swayed and panted, 
stumbling over dead and wounded men, slipping 
in pools of blood, bumping into fighting knots of 
pirates and seamen. Both were bleeding from a 
dozen wounds, both were near exhaustion, both 
were spent, and both knew that it was but a ques¬ 
tion of moments ere one would fall. And then, 
with a tremendous blow, Blackbeard brought his 
heavy cutlass swinging down, the lighter blade of 
the officer’s snapped at the hilt, and with a blood¬ 
curdling, triumphant yell the pirate swung his 
cutlass up, whirled it about his head and aimed a 
death-dealing blow at Maynard’s head. Quick as 
a flash the lieutenant leaped aside, the stroke fell 
short, and Maynard escaped with the loss of three 
fingers lopped off by that terrible blow. 

“Before the pirate could raise his weapon again 
one of Maynard’s men had leaped forward, his 
cutlass fell upon the back of Blackbeard’s neck, 
almost severing the head from the body, and with 
a crimson fountain spouting from the awful gash 
the pirate turned and cut his assailant to the chin 
with a single blow. But despite his ghastly 

[ 229 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


wound the pirate chieftain was still standing, still 
defiant, still fighting. All about, the decks were a 
shambles, his men were lying dead and wounded, 
half a dozen of Maynard’s men were attacking 
him. Kicking off his shoes to get a better foot¬ 
hold on the bloody deck, bellowing like a maddened 
bull, blood streaming from over twenty-five 
wounds, with his half-severed head lolling hide¬ 
ously upon his chest, but still defiant, Blackbeard 
backed against the bulwarks and slashed and 
lunged, keeping his enemies at bay until, as his 
life blood poured over his chest and beard and 
trickled to the decks, his muscles weakened and 
his blows grew less. Then, suddenly whipping a 
pistol from his belt, he made one last desperate 
effort to shoot down the lieutenant. But before 
he could press the trigger, before a man could 
strike the weapon up, his knees sagged, his eye¬ 
lids closed, and with a gurgling, awful moan he 
sank lifeless to the deck. 

“Few of the pirates remained alive, none were 
unwounded. Those who had the strength leaped 
overboard, attempting to escape, but all were cap¬ 
tured; Blackbeard and his men were wiped out 
and the only member of the pirates who had es¬ 
caped was the sailing master, Israel Hands. 

[ 230 ] 


THE END OF BLACKBEARD 

Nursing the bullet wound in his knee, which had 
been so playfully inflicted by Blackbeard, he was 
safe ashore. Doubtless he most heartily gave 
thanks for his dead captain’s form of humor and 
blessed the wound that gave him a stiff leg for 
life. 

“Maynard’s losses, too, were tremendous; many 
of his men had been killed, scarcely one had es¬ 
caped without serious wounds, but they forgot 
their hurts, for they were triumphant. Thirteen 
pirate prisoners were safe in irons in the sloop’s 
hold, the grewsome, awful head of the redoubta¬ 
ble Blackbeard was lashed to the tip of the bow¬ 
sprit, and, hoisting sail, Maynard set forth for 
Bath Town, North Carolina, to claim his well- 
earned reward and exhibit his bloody trophy. 
There the thirteen prisoners were promptly 
hanged, Teach’s black-whiskered, blood-clotted 
head, with the burnt-out fuses still in the tangled 
hair, was placed in the market square, and the 
promised rewards were duly paid to the cour¬ 
ageous lieutenant and his daring men.” 

“Jiminy!” exclaimed Fred. “That must have 
been some fight! Was that the end of the 
pirates?” 

“Practically,” replied Mr. Bickford. “Teach 

[ 231 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


was the last pirate of note. There were a few 
who still lurked in the Caribbean, but the Atlantic 
coasts and the West Indies were getting too hot 
for them. Such rascals, as Low, England, Roberts 
and Avery, transferred their activities to more 
out-of-the-way spots, to Africa, Madagascar and 
the Indian Ocean, and the last of the West Indian 
pirates were dispersed and destroyed by Lieu¬ 
tenant, afterwards Commodore, Porter, who also 
wiped out the Tripolitan pirates.” 

“But how about Lafitte and his pirates?” asked 
Jack. “I thought they lived until the time of the 
war of 1812 and helped General Jackson at the 
battle of New Orleans.” 

‘ ‘ So they did,’ ’ replied his father. i ‘ But Lafitte 
and his brother were not really pirates. That is, 
no real acts of piracy were ever proved against 
them, although they were denounced as such. In 
reality the Lafittes were smugglers, but their ca¬ 
reer was so picturesque and romantic that their 
story may be quite fittingly included in that of the 
buccaneers and pirates. 

“The two brothers, Jean and Pierre Lafitte, 
were born in France, and came to New Orleans in 
the spring of 1809. They were brilliant, witty, 
well educated, attractive men, and spoke several 

[232] 


THE END OF BLACKBEARD 

languages fluently. The two started a blacksmith 
shop, which they operated by slaves, and from 
the first the brothers appeared to have plenty of 
money. At that time there was a strip of territory, 
stretching for a distance of about sixty miles from 
the mouth of the Mississippi to Bayou Lafourche, 
which was in almost undisputed possession of a 
colony of smuggler-pirates known as the ‘ Bara¬ 
tarians, ’ from the fact that their headquarters 
were on the Bay of Barataria, a body of water 
with a narrow opening protected from the Gulf by 
a low, narrow island about six miles long known 
as Grande-Terre. 

“Some of these Baratarians possessed letters 
of marque from France, as well as from the Re¬ 
public of New Grenada (now Colombia), author¬ 
izing them to prey upon Spanish shipping, but 
like the pirates of old they had the reputation of 
lacking discrimination and of attacking any vessel 
that they could overpower. Whatever the truth 
of their piratical tendencies may have been, there 
was no question that they were smugglers on a 
large scale, and not long after the Lafittes ar¬ 
rived in Louisiana they joined their lot with these 
Baratarians. 

“Jean occupied a position as a sort of agent 

[ 233 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

and banker for the smugglers, but he was far too 
clever and ambitious to remain long in such a sub¬ 
ordinate capacity, and soon was the head and 
brains of the whole organization. To this state 
he won both by superior intelligence and force of 
arms, for both Lafittes were adept swordsmen 
and expert pistol shots, and when a fellow called 
Grambo, a burly leader among the Baratarians, 
had the temerity to question Jean Lafitte’s lead¬ 
ership the latter promptly whipped out a pistol 
and shot him through the heart. 

“Hitherto the Baratarians had been divided 
into factions, and there were constant dissensions 
and quarrels among them, but under Lafitte’s 
management all were united, and so daring and 
brazenly did they carry on their operations that. 
within three years from the time the Lafitte 
brothers stepped ashore at New Orleans there 
was more commerce entering and leaving Bara- 
taria Bay than the port of New Orleans. Great 
warehouses rose above the low sand dunes of 
Grande-Terre; cargoes of slaves were weekly auc¬ 
tioned in the big slave market; from far and near 
merchants and dealers flocked to the smugglers’ 
stronghold to barter and trade, and it was evi¬ 
dently but a question of time before the Lafittes 

[ 234 ] 


THE END OF BLACKBEAKD 

and their Baratarian friends would control all the 

import trade of the Mississippi Valley. 

* 

“ Becoming alarmed at the magnitude of opera¬ 
tions, the federal government decided to break up 
the smugglers, and revenue cutters were dis¬ 
patched to the bay. But the Baratarians* spies 
were vigilant, word of the raid was brought, and 
the discomfited government officers returned 
empty-handed, without having accomplished any¬ 
thing worth while. Indeed, it was a common ru¬ 
mor in New Orleans that even the United States 
officials were in league with the Lafittes, and the 
wealthy, charming Frenchmen came and went, 
spent their money freely in New Orleans, drove 
about in splendid carriages and with magnificent 
horses, maintained expensive establishments, and 
snapped their slender, jeweled fingers at the au¬ 
thorities. 

“It was the greatest, most flagrant smuggling 
enterprise ever carried on in the history of the 
world, and at last Governor Claiborne of Louisi¬ 
ana decided to take drastic measures to suppress 
it. The penalties of the law for smuggling were 
evidently not severe enough to meet the case, and 
so, in 1813, the governor issued a proclamation in 
which he declared the Baratarians pirates, warned 

[235] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 


the citizens not to deal with them, and threatened 
to hang every one he could lay hands on. 

“But His Excellency might have saved his 
breath and his paper. Twirling gold-headed 
canes, decked in valuable jewels, attired in the 
most expensive and beautifully tailored clothes, 
the Lafitte brothers strolled nonchalantly through 
the streets and, surrounded by admirers, read 
with interest and amusement the official placards 
in which they were denounced as pirates. Then, 
to add insult to injury, they tacked up posters, 
advertising a slave auction to be held at Barataria, 
alongside the irate governor’s proclamations! 

“Beside himself with anger, but realizing he 
was unable to cope single-handed with the situa¬ 
tion, Governor Claiborne issued a supplementary 
proclamation offering five hundred dollars reward 
for the apprehension of either of the Lafitte 
brothers. Only one man, as far as known, at¬ 
tempted to earn the reward, and instead of the 
five hundred dollars he received a bullet through 
the lungs which promptly relieved him of all de¬ 
sire or necessity for money or anything else of a 
worldly nature. 

“The governor was desperate. No one would 
raise a finger against the so-called ‘pirates,’ they 

[ 236 ] 


THE END OF BLACKBEABD 

openly defied the state, and lie asked the Legisla¬ 
ture for an appropriation to raise a company of 
volunteers to attack the stronghold of the La- 
fittes. Unfortunately the increase of the smug¬ 
glers’ business had so depleted the state treasury 
that there were no funds available; but at last the 
governor succeeded in obtaining an indictment for 
piracy against the two Lafittes and the Bara- 
tarian leaders. Armed with this, the governor 
managed to have Pierre arrested. 

“But the executive had forgotten that money 
talks. For a fee of $20,000 each, Jean Lafitte re¬ 
tained the two most prominent lawyers in the 
state, Edward Livingston and John R. Grymes, 
the latter resigning as District Attorney to de¬ 
fend the Lafittes. During the trial his successor 
taunted him with this and as a result Grymes 
challenged him and shot him through the hip, 
crippling him for life. 

“There was no question of how the trial would 
result. Pierre was freed, Jean was cleared and 
the indictment against him dismissed and the tri¬ 
umphant lawyers were invited by the brothers 
to visit their headquarters at Barataria and col¬ 
lect their fees. Livingston, a New Yorker, de¬ 
clined, but Grymes, who was a Virginian, accepted, 

[237] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

and the tale is still told in New Orleans of the 
princely entertainment, the magnificent feast and 
the whole-souled hospitality accorded the attorney 
by the Lafittes and their outlaw friends. Finally 
he was sent back to New Orleans in an almost 
regally appointed yawl laden with boxes contain¬ 
ing the two lawyers’ fees in Spanish doubloons 
and pieces of eight. 

“Meanwhile the war between England and the 
United States had been going on for nearly two 
years. It had been felt but little on the shores 
of the Gulf, however, and the Baratarians, and 
even the more law-abiding citizens, scarcely knew 
that there was a conflict. But in September, 1814, 
the smuggler-pirate colony was started by the 
sudden appearance of an armed British brig off 
their island haunt. Hastily ordering out his pri¬ 
vate cutter, Jean Lafitte boarded the war vessel, 
invited the officers ashore and feasted them right 
royally. Then, as the merry party sat back and 
puffed at their fine Havanas the smuggler chief¬ 
tain was presented with a letter from the British 
commandant at Pensacola. It was an offer of a 
high commission in the British army and a fee of 
$30,000, provided Lafitte would use his forces in 
assisting the British in their proposed invasion of 
Louisiana. 


[238] 


THE END OF BLACKBEARD 


“The Frenchman hesitated, replied that it 
would take him some time to decide upon such an 
important matter and asked for ten days in which 
to consider it. This was willingly granted, the 
officers were escorted back to their ship and, well 
satisfied with their progress, they prepared to 
await Lafitte’s reply, which they felt convinced 
would be favorable. But even before they had 
stepped upon their ship’s decks a messenger had 
been despatched post-haste by Lafitte to the 
Louisiana Legislature. Not only did the mes¬ 
senger carry a complete account of the British 
plans of invasion as divulged by the officers, but 
he also carried the letter from the English com¬ 
mandant and a letter from Lafitte offering the 
services of himself and his men in the defense of 
the state. 

“ Instantly Governor Claiborne called a council 
of the army, navy and militia officers and showed 
them Lafitte’s communication. The officials could 
not believe that Lafitte—outlaw and smuggler and 
so-called pirate—could possess any sentiments of 
patriotism, and one and all declared that, in their 
opinions, the papers were forgeries and that 
Lafitte had submitted them in order to prevent the 
authorities from interfering with his plans. 

[239] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

“As a result, an expedition was organized, and, 
under command of Commodore Patterson and 
Colonel Ross, set out to attack the Baratarians. 
Supposing, as was natural, that the approaching 
forces had been sent to combine with them against 
the British, the smugglers were taken completely 
by surprise; many were killed and captured and 
their headquarters were destroyed. Only the two 
Lafittes and a few followers escaped and a vast 
quantity of loot was seized by the victorious 
troops. Among this booty was found the jewelry 
of a Creole lady who had left New Orleans several 
years before and had never been heard from, and 
this circumstantial evidence of piracy was the sole 
and only thing ever produced to prove that the 
Lafittes or the Baratarians could be considered 
pirates. Upon that one incident all the tales of 
piracy by the Lafittes have been built up and, like 
Captain Kidd’s, their fame has grown from noth¬ 
ing. Despite the scurvy treatment accorded 
Lafitte by the governor, he still remained true to 
his adopted country and instead of joining the 
British—and he could scarcely have been blamed 
if he had—he remained with his brother and the 
other fugitives in hiding until General Andrew 
Jackson arrived to take supreme command at New 

[240] 


THE END OF BLACKBEAED 


Orleans. Then, risking life and liberty, he came 
forth again, offered his services and those of his 
men to the nation and was promptly accepted. 
General Jackson placed Lafitte in command of 
the redoubts along the river with a part of his 
men and detailed the others to the battery at New 
Orleans. Throughout that memorable battle the 
Baratarians and the Lafittes fought with such 
furious and whole-hearted bravery that they were 
lauded in the general orders issued after the vic¬ 
tory, and at General Jackson’s suggestion all 
were granted full pardons. 

“After the battle, a great ball was given by the 
army and naval officers and great was the rejoic¬ 
ing, and at this brilliant function Jean Lafitte ap¬ 
peared for the last time. Among the honored 
guests was General Coffee, and the pompous 
General and the dandy Frenchman were brought 
together for an introduction. At first, as the or¬ 
derly mentioned Lafitte’s name, the General hesi¬ 
tated and glanced superciliously over the smiling 
stranger. Lafitte stepped forward, drew himself 
up proudly and announced: ‘Lafitte, the pirate.’ 
Instantly the General thrust out his hand and 
grasped the other’s cordially. 

“Never again were the Lafittes seen in New 

[ 241 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

Orleans or their old haunts. Rumors came from 
time to time, wild tales were told of their doings, 
but there was little to bear them out. It was, 
however, generally accepted as a fact beyond dis¬ 
pute that they went to an island near Galveston, 
secured commissions as privateers from a South 
American Republic and preyed upon Spanish 
shipping to their own considerable profit. 

“ About that time, too, a United States cruiser 
was attacked by unknown corsairs in the Gulf and 
looted of an enormous sum in bullion and this was 
laid to the Lafittes. As a result, the Galveston 
settlement was attacked and destroyed, but no 
signs of the famous Lafittes were found. Perhaps 
they had never been there, perhaps they man¬ 
aged to escape. They completely disappeared and 
where they passed the remainder of their lives, 
where they died has never been discovered. Once 
it was reported that they had sailed to the Ar¬ 
gentine and had entered the service of the Buenos 
Ayres government. Again it was stated that they 
had established a pirate lair in Yucatan. There 
were stories of their having settled on Ruatan 
Island off Honduras, where they conducted wreck¬ 
ing and piratical undertakings, but definite news, 
actual proofs, were never forthcoming. 

[ 242 ] 


THE END OF BLACKBEARD 

“We can scarcely believe that men who had 
proved their patriotism and their valor, men who 
had shown their honor and their loyalty as had 
the Lafittes, would countenance an attack upon a 
United States ship. It does not seem like them 
to have degenerated into rascally cut-throats and 
wreckers. To my mind, it is far more probable 
that they returned to their beloved France or 
settled down under new names in some quiet 
tropical land and there passed the remainder of 
their lives like the accomplished gentlemen they 
were. No one will ever know. We can only 
surmise. But with the passing of these romantic, 
picturesque brothers went the last of the more 
famous pirates. And—as I said before—there 
was nothing to prove that they were pirates after 
all.” 

“ Golly, I never knew the buccaneers and pi¬ 
rates were so interesting,” declared Fred, as Mr. 
Bickford ceased speaking. “I always loved to 
read stories about them, but they’re a lot more 
interesting than the stories.” 

“Yes,” agreed his uncle. “It’s a splendid 
example of the truth of the time-worn saying that 
4 truth is stranger than fiction.’ And did you ever 
stop to think, boys, that if it hadn’t been for the 

[ 243 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

buccaneers there might not—probably would not 
—have been any United States?” 

‘ ‘ Why, no! ” cried Jack. 

“How could that be?” demanded Fred. 

“Very few people realize that we owe the buc¬ 
caneers a tremendous debt of gratitude or that 
they played a most important part in the history 
of America. They may have been ruthless, cruel, 
bloodthirsty, unprincipled cut-throats, but if it 
had not been for the buccaneers the chances are 
that what is now the United States would have 
been a colony of Spain or a Spanish-American 
republic. It was very largely owing to the buc¬ 
caneers that England retained her supremacy in 
the West Indies. She was far too busy with wars 
at home to look after her American possessions; 
Spain controlled South and Central America, 
Florida and the Southwest, and her sea power 
was tremendous. But the buccaneers kept the 
Dons in check, they compelled Spain to devote 
all her energies and her warships to protecting 
her cities and her plate ships, and, with the sea 
rovers everywhere in the Caribbean, the Dons 
could not expand their holdings and were hard 
put to it to hold what they had. It is no exag¬ 
geration to say that the buccaneers had a greater 

[ 244 ] 



The last of the pirate ships, the Vigilant , as she was originally rigged. Now a packet in 

the West Indies 



















THE END OF BLACKBEARD 

effect on maintaining England’s hold in America 
than all the British Crown’s forces. And the Brit¬ 
ish navy was not at all blind to the services of 
the buccaneers. When the English attacked 
Jamaica and wrested it from Spain the buccaneers 
took a most important part and in many another 
sea battle, and land attack as well, the British 
navy and army were mighty glad of the bucca¬ 
neers’ help. Whatever their sins and their mis¬ 
deeds may have been, we cannot overlook the fact 
that they had a most important place in the 
scheme of things, that they helped make history 
and that they are entitled to a big niche in the 
hall of fame of pioneers, colonizers and fighters of 
America. And there is no need to fear that they 
will ever be forgotten. As long as there is red 
blood in the veins of men and boys; as long as 
human beings have pulses that will quicken to 
tales of heroism and bravery and mighty deeds, 
the swashbuckling, daredevil, picturesque bucca¬ 
neers, and even the pirates who came after, will 
live on. The names of kings and queens may be 
forgotten. Famous admirals and generals may 
have passed into oblivion. Great battles and tre¬ 
mendous victories, treaties of peace and declara¬ 
tions of war; the conquests of countries; the sub- 

[ 245 ] 


THE BOYS’ BOOK OF BUCCANEERS 

jugation of kingdoms may fade from memory, and 
yet, every schoolboy is familiar with the names 
of Morgan, L’Ollonois, Montbars, Hawkins and 
the other chieftains of the buccaneers. They were 
characters who can never die.” 

“Gee, I’m kind of sorry they have all gone,” 
declared Jack, as his father ceased speaking. “It 
would be great to see a real buccaneer or a real 
pirate ship.” 

Mr. Bickford smiled. “I’m afraid you’ll never 
see a buccaneer,” he said. “But you might see 
a pirate ship.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, do you really mean there are any pirates ’ 
ships left?” cried Fred. 

“I can’t say, positively,” replied his uncle. 
“But there was one a very short time ago. She 
was doing duty as a packet between the Virgin 
Islands and her name was the Vigilant. She was 
a trim, speedy little schooner—the typical ‘low 
black craft with rakish masts’ of story and fiction 
and had had a most adventurous and romantic 
career. She was built at Baltimore and was orig¬ 
inally intended as a privateer for use in the Revo¬ 
lution. But the war was over before she was 
launched and she served as a smuggler, a slaver 
and a pirate, changing hands frequently. At that 

[ 246 ] 


THE END OF BLACKBEARD 

time she was rigged as a topsail schooner and was 
called the Nonesuch, and at one time she was even 
a man-of-war. That happened when Denmark and 
Spain were at war and a Spanish cruiser was 
harassing Danish commerce, always escaping by 
fleeing to waters too shoal for the Danish war 
vessels. The Vigilant was pressed into service, 
disguised as a merchantman, and lured the Span¬ 
iard on until at close quarters, when she suddenly 
showed her real character in true pirate fashion, 
and, throwing grappling irons, the armed crew of 
the schooner swarmed over the Spaniard’s side, 
killed the captain and officers, overpowered the 
crew and captured the ship. It was the last en¬ 
gagement of the gallant little schooner—a fitting 
end to her career—and ever since she has done 
duty as an honest merchantman. I have seen her 
many times, have even sailed on her, and, for all 
I know to the contrary, she may still be plowing 
the blue Caribbean in the haunts of the buccaneers 
as staunch, fast and seaworthy as when the Joil y 
Roger flew from many a masthead.” 

THE END 


[ 247 ] 

















SEP 11 W28 















































































































































































